During the London congress devoted to combating terrorism, the head of Europol, Rob Wainwright, complained that the creator of the Telegram app, Pavel Durov, does not show any special desire to cooperate with the special services in order to dodge jihadists from this application, among which it enjoys particular success.
Telegram is popular among young jihadists joining the IS in Syria, and it was used by one of the most advanced British cyber-terrorists, writes the Times.
Wainwright said that now the militants of the extremist grouping “Islamic State” are developing their own social network, which will allow them to communicate and propagate without interference. According to Wainwright, the creation of his own social network is a response to the pressure from the special services of different countries and technology companies.
However, as the head of Europol said in an interview with the Times, if Facebook and Twitter are actively cooperating with special services, helping them to prevent terrorist propaganda, Telegram is evading such cooperation.
32-year-old founder of Telegram Pavel Durov has repeatedly stated that his application should be free.
“We do not like bureaucracy, police states, big governments, wars, socialism and excessive standards,” Durov said.
“We like freedom, strong judiciary systems, small governments, free markets, neutrality and civil rights,” the Times continues to quoteMr Durov.
After the terrorist attack in Paris in 2015, when it became clear that the attackers mostly used Telegram for their communication, the company closed several chat rooms in its application and stated that it would actively ban extremist content.