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I’m turning 41, but I don’t feel like celebrating.

— Pavel Durov

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Notes from Wikiquote

What was once the promise of the free exchange of information is being turned into the ultimate tool of control. | From a post on X, 10 October 2025. Quoted in Pavel Durov lancia l'allarme su Telegram: “Siamo alla fine dell'internet libera”, wired.it, 10 October 2025 (in Italian)

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Technology

More quotes by Pavel Durov

Russian officials are clearly confused about who can ban whom from the Internet

Every one of us is going to die eventually, but we as a species will stick around for a while. That’s why I think accumulating money, fame or power is irrelevant. Serving humanity is the only thing that really matters in the long run.

In my 20 years of managing discussion platforms, I noticed that conspiracy theories only strengthen each time their content is removed by moderators. Instead of putting an end to wrong ideas, censorship often makes it harder to fight them.

Earlier this week, Hamas used w:Telegram (software) to warn civilians in Ashkelon to leave the area ahead of their missile strikes. Would shutting down their channel help save lives — or would it endanger more lives?”

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We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living.

Buckminster Fuller

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.

Alfred North Whitehead An Introduction to Mathematics (1911)

The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

John Gilmore

If technical progress is not matched by corresponding progress in man's ethical formation, in man's inner growth, then it is not progress at all, but a threat for man and for the world.

Pope Benedict XVI

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Pavel Durov (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.