Telegram Boss Says Government Wanted to Silence Romanian Voices

So, check this out. The guy who started the Telegram app, Pavel Durov, said he got this request from a Western government, and he wouldn't name them, but he like, hinted it was France. Anyway, they wanted him to shut down what he called "conservative voices" in Romania just before their presidential election run-off. Can you believe that?

Romanians were voting that Sunday in this big election. It was between a really conservative guy and someone more in the middle. This vote is a big deal for Romania's money situation and for how the whole European Union sticks together, you know?

This election is happening after the first one got put on hold cause people said Russia messed with it, though Russia said they didn't. That far-right candidate, Calin Georgescu, who was doing pretty well, got banned from running again.

Okay, back to Durov. He wrote on Telegram that this Western European government asked him to silence conservative people in Romania before the election today. He said, straight up, no way. He even put a baguette emoji in his post, which a lot of people thought was a clue it was France. He was like, you can't protect democracy by getting rid of democracy, right? You can't fight election meddling by meddling yourself. Either you have free speech and fair elections, or you don't. And he thinks the Romanian people deserve both.

But then, the French foreign ministry jumped in on X, where Twitter used to be. They showed a screenshot of Durov's message and said it was totally false. They said these rumors about France messing with the Romanian election on Telegram and X were completely baseless. France said they absolutely deny these claims and told everyone to be responsible and respect Romania's democracy.

Just a little background, Durov was born in Russia and lives in Dubai. He actually got arrested last year in France because of an investigation into some serious stuff like child pornography, drug dealing, and weird money stuff linked to the app. He said he didn't do anything wrong though, and he went back to Dubai in March.