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The sensational arrest in France / Who is Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram and what are the consequences for the application

2024-08-25 16:19:21Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
The sensational arrest in France / Who is Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram
Pavel Durov

Who is Pavel Durov, the billionaire founder of Telegram arrested in France, what are the consequences for the application

Pavel Durov, the Russian-French billionaire, founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested Saturday evening at Bourget airport near Paris.

Durov was traveling on his private plane, TF1 reported on its website, adding that an arrest warrant had been issued in France as part of a preliminary police investigation.

TF1 and BFM said the investigation is focused on the lack of moderators on Telegram and that police believe this situation allows criminal activities to take place unhindered on the messaging app.

France's OFMIN, the agency charged with preventing violence against minors, issued an arrest warrant for Durov in a preliminary investigation into suspected crimes, including fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, organized crime and the promotion of terrorism , one of the sources said.

Durov is accused of not taking measures to curb the criminal use of his platform.

"Enough with Telegram's impunity," one of the investigators said, adding that they were surprised Durov came to Paris knowing he was a wanted man.

The Dubai-based encrypted messaging app has positioned itself as an alternative to US platforms, which have been criticized for commercial exploitation of users' personal data.

Telegram is committed to never revealing any information about its users.

With nearly a billion users, the encrypted Telegram is particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the former Soviet Union. It ranks as one of the leading social media platforms after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and Wechat.

Durov was born in Russia and founded Telegram with his brother in 2013. He left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on his VKontakte platform, which he sold.

"I'd rather be free than take orders from anyone," Durov told US journalist Tucker Carlson in April of his departure from Russia and search for headquarters for his company, which includes operations in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco.

After Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Telegram became the main source of unfiltered and sometimes explicit and misleading content from both sides about the war and post-conflict politics.

The platform has become what some analysts call a "virtual battlefield" in the war, which is being widely used by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his officials, as well as the Russian government.

Telegram, which allows users to evade official control, has also become one of the few places where Russians can access independent news about the war after the Kremlin increased restrictions on independent media following the invasion of Ukraine.

The Russian Foreign Ministry announced that the Russian embassy in Paris is clarifying the situation surrounding Durov and called on Western non-governmental organizations to demand his release.

Russia began blocking Telegram in 2018 after the app refused to comply with a court order to give state security services access to its users' encrypted messages.

The block disrupted many third-party services, but had little effect on Telegram's availability in Russia. However, the ban sparked mass protests in Moscow and criticism from non-governmental organizations.

TF1 said Durov had traveled from Baku to Azerbaijan and was arrested around 8:00 p.m.

Durov, whose fortune Forbes estimates at $15.5 billion, said some governments had tried to pressure him, but the app should remain a "neutral platform" and not a "player in geopolitics".

However, Telegram's growing popularity has prompted scrutiny from several European countries, including France, over concerns about security and data breaches.

Russia's representative to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, and several other Russian politicians rushed Sunday to accuse France of behaving like a dictatorship, the same criticism Moscow faced when it made demands on Durov in 2014 and tried to stop Telegram in 2018.

"Some naive people still do not understand that, although they play a more or less visible role in the international information space, it is not safe for them to visit countries that are moving towards much more totalitarian societies," wrote Ulyanov in X.

Billionaire Elon Musk, owner of X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, said after reports of Durov's ban: "It's 2030 in Europe and they're executing you for liking a meme."

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who on Friday quit the US presidential campaign and endorsed Republican Donald Trump, told X after the report that the need to protect free speech "has never been more urgent."

Several Russian bloggers have called for protests outside French embassies around the world on Sunday at noon.


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