(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) During an interview released Tuesday with newscaster Tucker Carlson, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov revealed that the United States government had attempted to coerce a Telegram engineer to open “back doors” into the platform that would allow unfettered spying.
Telegram founder @durov explains to @TuckerCarlson how the US government tried to secretly hire his engineer to create “back doors” for officials to spy on users.
“For us running a privacy focused social media platform that probably wasn’t the best environment to be in.” pic.twitter.com/d8sFvmDuk4
— Tucker Carlson Network (@TCNetwork) April 16, 2024
Durov, a Russian native living in Dubai, said officials with an unspecified government agency had attempted to hire an employee from his team last time he traveled to the U.S.
“I brought an engineer that is working for Telegram and there was an attempt to secretly hire my engineer behind my back by cyber-security officers,” he said.
According to Durov’s engineer, the officials wanted more information on Telegram’s open-source libraries and attempted to persuade him to use certain tools to open up back doors into the platform’s code.
Theoretically, this could allow governments to spy on Telegram users.
The vulnerability would not simply have granted access to America’s deep state, however.
“The U.S. government, or any other government!” Durov said. “A back door is a back door, regardless of who is using it.”
The young CEO said he believed his engineer’s story because he also faced scrutiny by the American government.
“One time I was having my breakfast, like 9 a.m., and the FBI showed up at my house that I was renting. That was quite surprising,” he said. “I thought, ‘We are getting too much attention here’ … For us, running a privacy-focused social-media platform, that probably wasn’t the best environment to be in.”
Due to its privacy protections, the Telegram platform has proven popular among fringe anti-government groups deemed by the intelligence communty to be “domestic violent extremists,” as well as Satanic cults, including the O9A, that have been implicated in a series of homicides, and incidents involving pedophilia and child sexual abuse.
The FBI and other agencies are known to have infiltrated many of these groups and, in some cases, assisted in propping them up in order to entrap other would-be members.
Durov explained that the company ended up settling in Dubai because of the ease of doing business, low taxes and accessible infrastructure. The United Arab Emirates is also a neutral country, making it ideal for a neutral social platform.
Telegram reportedly received no pressure coming from the UAE government. However, other governments—including the United States—have continued to pressure Durov and his team to provide (or not provide) information about private citizens.
For example, after the Jan. 6, 2021 uprising at the U.S. Capitol, Durov said Democrats sent a letter to Telegram requesting data on people who participated in the protest. The letter claimed that not doing so would be in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Two weeks later, the staff received another letter from Republicans saying that if Telegram provided such information they would be in violation of the Constitution.
Telegram opted to ignore both congressional letters altogether.
