Telegram's Founder Pavel Durov Sends Alarmist Message to All Telegram Users
Key topics
"End of free internet: The free internet is turning into a tool of control"
When I clicked on it, I got transported into Pavel Durov's telegram group. Full of ramblings, NFT crap, and now a new message that read:
> I’m turning 41, but I don’t feel like celebrating. > > Our generation is running out of time to save the free Internet built for us by our fathers. > > What was once the promise of the free exchange of information is being turned into the ultimate tool of control. > > Once-free countries are introducing dystopian measures such as digital IDs (UK), online age checks (Australia), and mass scanning of private messages (EU). > > Germany is persecuting anyone who dares to criticize officials on the Internet. The UK is imprisoning thousands for their tweets. France is criminally investigating tech leaders who defend freedom and privacy. > > A dark, dystopian world is approaching fast — while we’re asleep. Our generation risks going down in history as the last one that had freedoms — and allowed them to be taken away. > > We’ve been fed a lie. > > We’ve been made to believe that the greatest fight of our generation is to destroy everything our forefathers left us: tradition, privacy, sovereignty, the free market, and free speech. > > By betraying the legacy of our ancestors, we’ve set ourselves on a path toward self-destruction — moral, intellectual, economic, and ultimately biological. > > So no, I’m not going to celebrate today. I’m running out of time. We are running out of time.
I think I'll be looking for yet another messaging service after this.
Telegram's founder Pavel Durov sent an alarmist message to users warning about the erosion of internet freedom, sparking debate about the validity of his claims and the motivations behind the message.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Very active discussionFirst comment
14m
Peak period
22
0-2h
Avg / period
5
Based on 30 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Oct 10, 2025 at 9:44 AM EDT
3 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Oct 10, 2025 at 9:58 AM EDT
14m after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
22 comments in 0-2h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Oct 11, 2025 at 4:45 AM EDT
3 months ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45535384
1) Provide a phone number
2) Install a mobile app
3) Activate Google Play Services
...All to create an account for this "private" messaging service. After which I needed to disable location sharing and public display of a phone number I used. A recent change now gives the country of the sim I used when registering if I DM someone new.
Other than that, his message does speak to valid concerns. However, I'm not sure why Telegram needed so much personal data for sending private messages.
Are you sure this isn't spam and that its actually coming from Durov?
[0] https://t.me/durov/452
Then we had Internet2 which is backbone dedicated to research, again, not a tool for coordination or control.
If you were online in the 90s, a popular refrain was that the internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it. It was very much operated as a free space for ideas. There was no centralization of platforms, no apps, and anyone could host whatever they wanted.
Depending on your age, that is the internet built by your parents.
The (simplified) sequence (in the US) was:
ARPANet (1969 - 1990)
"Commercial Internet" (1989 -)
NSFNet (1990 - 1996)
Internet2 (1996 -)
NSFNet, overseen and partially funded by (unsurprisingly) the National Science Foundation, had quite a number of restrictions and an acceptable use policy that prohibited commercial use. To get around those restrictions, the "Commercial Internet Exchange" was formed allowing commercial networks to easily interconnect.
As for "apps", the World Wide Web was invented in 1989 and publicly released in 1993. Prior to that, there was "Usenet News" and a service called "gopher". There were many centralized services that interconnected with "the Internet" (mostly NSFNet), e.g., Compuserve, AOL, MSN, etc.
The majority of most peoples lives online are locked up and controlled by a few. Whereas anyone with any gopher client or IRC client could participate in any number of nets back then as equals.
TBH I had forgotten about Compuserv or AOL, because at the time that was a walled garden for a different class of user, and private sites have always existed.
Neither of which are really too relevant for the internet “built by our fathers” because I interpret that as the open, standards based internet that allowed all that innovation to take place
> The UK is imprisoning thousands for their tweets
is a misleading dog whistle.
https://www.met.police.uk/foi-ai/metropolitan-police/disclos...
There are ~2k arrests per year (not imprisonment), and it includes stuff like racial harassment, domestic abuse, and pedophilic grooming, over any electronic communications network including phone or email.
You should always be doing this on a regular basis if there's any question marks around your current solution, with Telegram I have a few of those.
These alarmist messages only seem to come out only when you think you will be affected. When the people you don't care about are silenced, it's not only business as usual, but gas lighting articles are written about how it's not happening.
Ignoring these issues 4 years ago led to what we have today. Many just don't care to fight it any longer because they know this is only about politics and not about freedom. it's the activist way.
Seven years ago they wanted to become identity provider: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17618053
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45535384