The messaging platform Telegramone of the most popular on social media, is likely to surpass the one billion active monthly users within a year as it spreads like a “forest fire”, as its billionaire founder Pavel Durov commented yesterday, Tuesday, speaking to the American journalist Tucker Carlson.

Telegram, which has particular influence in the republics of the former Soviet Union, ranks among the largest social networking platforms after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and Wechat.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Telegram became the main source of unfiltered, and often harsh and misleading content from both sides about the war and the politics surrounding the conflict.

One of Telegram’s main rivals, Meta’s WhatsApp, has more than two billion monthly active users.

The history of Telegram

Dubai-based Telegram was founded by Russian-born Durov, who fled Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with a request to shut down opposition communities on his platform, VK, which he later sold.

Durov says he came up with the idea of ​​an encrypted messaging app as a way to communicate while in Russia and under pressure.

His younger brother, Nikolai, designed the encryption.

As Durov explains, he left Russia because he could not take orders from any government, and he dismissed a question about claims that Telegram is controlled by Russia as false rumors spread by competitors worried about Telegram’s success.

“I’d rather be free than take orders from anyone,” Durov said of his departure from Russia and the search for a home for his company that included stints in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco.

Durov, whose fortune according to Forbes is estimated at $15.5 billion, said that some governments have tried to pressure him, but the app, which currently has 900 million active users, should remain a “neutral platform” and not a “player on the geopolitical chessboard”.

As he said, the bureaucracy – especially in terms of hiring foreign talent – in these places was very painful, and he was also attacked on a San Francisco street by people who tried to take his cell phone.

But more worryingly, he said, he received too much attention from US security agencies, including the FBI. He says US agents tried to hire one of his engineers to gain access to the platform through the back door. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment outside business hours.

When it comes to free speech, however, Duroff commented that the biggest challenges were not governments, but big competitors like Apple and Alphabet, the parent of Google.

“These two platforms, they can basically censor what you read, have access to your smart phone,” Durov said, adding that the aforementioned platforms told Telegram that if it did not comply with their instructions, then they would remove it from their stores.

He also said he chose the UAE as it is a “neutral country” that wants to be friends with everyone and is not aligned with any of the superpowers, so he felt it would be the most appropriate place for a “neutral platform”.

Telegram, he noted, is used by both opposition parties and governments, but is not aligned with either side.

Duroff concluded by saying that aside from cash or Bitcoin, he does not own any significant real estate, jet or yacht as he wants to be single.