Telegram does not participate in political censorship and has not closed activist accounts in Ethiopia or anywhere else. We are a platform that supports the right to peaceful free speech. It is this clear policy that has led to Telegram's use in pro-democracy movements from Iran to Belarus to Hong Kong.

Any attempts to abuse our content reporting systems to remove legitimate speech are doomed to fail because only content that breaches our terms is deleted.

A full statement from Telegram is attached above