Comment by Lockal

Durov personally blocked Navalny channels in Telegram during 2021 elections - https://www.rferl.org/a/telegram-navalny-smart-voting/314662... even though "technically" as a foreign legal entity they had no obligation to follow orders of Russian censorship agencies. Also, if you look up the results of court decisions in Russia, Telegram leads by a significant margin among other messengers. Yes, of course, it is the most popular messenger in Russia, but it is designed from the ground up to tie and control the circle of communication to specific people as precisely as possible.