Pavel Durov Sounds the Alarm: The Countdown to Preserve Internet Freedom Is On

Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of the messaging app Telegram, cautions that a “dark, dystopian world” is on the horizon, as governments globally retract privacy protections.

“I’m turning 41, but I don’t feel like celebrating. Our generation is running out of time to save the free internet created for us by our forebears,” stated Durov in a post on X this Thursday.

“Once-free nations are implementing oppressive measures,” Durov noted, highlighting the European Union’s Chat Control proposal, digital IDs in the UK, and new regulations mandating online age verification for accessing social media in Australia.

“What was once the promise of the free exchange of information is becoming the ultimate tool for control.”

“Germany is prosecuting anyone who dares to criticize officials online. The UK is imprisoning thousands for their tweets. France is investigating technology leaders who advocate for freedom and privacy,” he added.

“A dark, dystopian reality is approaching quickly — while we remain unaware. Our generation may be remembered as the last to possess freedoms — and allowed them to be stripped away,” Pavel continued.

Privacy protections are fundamental to Bitcoin and the wider cryptocurrency ecosystem. Bitcoin was designed to function pseudonymously, employing addresses instead of names, and enabling peer-to-peer transactions without bank involvement, among other features.

Germany may have hindered the EU’s Chat Control

EU lawmakers were poised to vote on the Chat Control legislation next week, which critics argue undermines encrypted messaging and individuals’ privacy rights by requiring services such as Telegram, WhatsApp, and Signal to permit regulators to scan messages before encryption and transmission.

However, the legislation has faced significant backlash, with the leader of Germany’s largest political party opposing it. Germany, holding 97 seats in the European Parliament, was viewed as having the decisive vote on whether it would be enacted.

The president of messaging app Signal, Meredith Whittaker, indicated on Thursday that while Germany’s opposition to the bill is reassuring, she cautioned that “the war is not over,” as it now proceeds to “the European Council, where the matter remains unresolved.”

She also alerts that any future efforts to implement similar measures permitting content scanning should be resisted because they undermine encryption and create “a perilous backdoor.”

“The technical consensus is clear: you can’t create a backdoor that only lets the ‘good guys’ in. No matter how they’re framed, these proposals establish cybersecurity vulnerabilities that hackers and adversarial nations are keenly ready to exploit .”

The UK’s Digital ID has raised alarms, too

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer revealed a digital ID initiative in September, which would necessitate citizens to verify their rights to reside and work in the nation.

The government promotes the measure as a strategy to combat illegal employment, while simultaneously decreasing verification delays for accessing government services like licenses, childcare, welfare, and tax.