Telegram founder Pavel Durov, on the occasion of his birthday, made a loud statement about the end of the free Internet era. Rossiyskaya Gazeta full quote:
I'm about to turn 41 but I don't want to celebrate.
Our generation has less and less time to save on the free Internet that our ancestors created for us. What once promised the free flow of information is becoming a powerful tool of control. Countries formerly considered free are adopting dark measures: digital ID cards (in the UK), online age checks (in Australia), mass scanning of personal messages (in the European Union). Germany cracks down on anyone who dares to criticize the government online. In the UK, thousands of people are jailed for their tweets. France has opened a criminal investigation against leaders of technology companies that protect freedom and privacy.
A dark, dystopian world is quickly approaching while we sleep. Our generation risks going down in history as the last to have freedoms – and as the ones who allowed them to be taken away.
We were lied to. We have come to believe that the greatest battle of our generation is the destruction of everything our ancestors left us: tradition, privacy, sovereignty, free markets, and free speech. Betraying the legacy of our ancestors, we have embarked on a path of self-destruction – moral, intellectual, economic and ultimately biological.
So no, I won't be celebrating today. I don't have much time. We don't have much time.
