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Both main US parties threatened Telegram, co-founder says

"So we got two letters that said: whatever we do, we would be violating the US Constitution," Pavel Durov said

© Sergey Konkov/ TASS

NEW YORK, April 17. /TASS/. Telegram received threats from representatives of both Democratic and Republican parties after the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol, Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov said in an interview with Tucker Carlson.

"There was a funny story related to your home country. After the events of January 6, we received a letter from, I believe, a congressman from the Democratic side, and they requested that we share all the data that we have in relations to what they called 'this uprising.' And we checked it with our lawyers, and they said: 'you better ignore it.' But the letter seemed very serious, and the letter said, you know, if you fail to comply with this request, you will be in violation of the US Constitution," he said.

The Republican Party followed this example in two weeks, Durov continued.

"Two weeks after that letter, we got another letter, a new letter, from the Republican side of the Congress, and there we read that, if we give out any data [to the Democrats], […] we would be in violation of the US Constitution," he said.

"So we got two letters that said: whatever we do, we would be violating the US Constitution," Durov concluded.

Apple and Google, not national governments exert most pressure on Telegram, Durov said.

"I would say that the largest pressure is not coming from governments. It is coming from Apple and Google. When it comes to the freedom of speech, those two platforms could, basically, censor whatever you can read, access on you smartphone," he said.

"They make very clear that if we fail to comply with their guidelines, as they call it, Telegram could be removed from the [app] stores," Durov added.

On January 6, 2021, supporters of then-US President Donald Trump stormed into the US Congress building in an attempt to prevent the approval of the outcome of the November, 2020 presidential elections, won by Joe Biden. The police shot one protester during the riots inside the building.

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