Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of the favored messaging app Telegram, was arrested in Paris over the weekend over allegations that his platform is getting used for illicit exercise similar to drug trafficking and the distribution of kid sexual abuse photos.
Durov, who was born in Russia, spent a lot of his childhood in Italy and is a citizen of France, Russia, the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis and the United Arab Emirates. He was taken into custody at Paris-Le Bourget Airport in France on Saturday after touchdown from Azerbaijan.
In an announcement posted to its platform, Telegram mentioned it abides by EU legal guidelines and its content material moderation is “inside business requirements and consistently enhancing.” Durov, the corporate added, “has nothing to cover and travels regularly in Europe.”
Listed here are some particulars on Telegram, the app on the heart of Durov’s arrest.
WHAT IS TELEGRAM?
Telegram is an app that enables for one-on-one conversations, group chats and huge “channels” that permit folks broadcast messages to subscribers. Not like rivals similar to Meta’s WhatsApp, Telegram’s group chats permit as many as 200,000 folks, in comparison with a most of 1,024 for WhatsApp. Consultants have raised considerations that misinformation spreads simply in group chats of this measurement.
Telegram provides encryption for his or her communications, however — opposite to a well-liked false impression — this function shouldn’t be on by default. Customers have to change on the choice to encrypt their chats. It additionally doesn’t work with group chats. That contrasts with rival Sign and Fb Messenger, the place chats are encrypted end-to-end by default.
Telegram says it has greater than 950 million lively customers. It’s extensively utilized in France as a messaging instrument, together with by some officers within the presidential palace and within the ministry behind the investigation into Durov. However French investigators have additionally discovered the app has been utilized by Islamic extremists and drug traffickers.
Telegram was launched in 2013 by Durov and his brother Nikolai. In keeping with Telegram, Pavel Durov helps the app “financially and ideologically whereas Nikolai’s enter is technological.”
Earlier than Telegram, Durov based VKontakte, Russia’s largest social community. The corporate got here below stress amid the Russian authorities’s crackdown after mass pro-democracy protests rocked Moscow on the finish of 2011 and 2012. Durov mentioned authorities authorities demanded that the VKontakte take down the net communities of Russian opposition activists. It later requested the platform handy over the private information of customers who took half within the 2013 rebellion in Ukraine, which finally ousted a pro-Kremlin president.
However Durov offered his stake in VKontakte after stress from Russian authorities in 2014. He additionally left the nation. At the moment, Telegram relies in Dubai, which Durov referred to as “the most effective place for a impartial platform like ours to be in if we wish to ensure we are able to defend our customers’ privateness and freedom of speech” in an April interview with conservative speak present host Tucker Carlson.
WHY WAS DUROV ARRESTED?
French media has reported that Durov was detained on an arrest warrant alleging his platform has been used for cash laundering, drug trafficking and different offenses. As of Monday afternoon, he had not been charged, and few particulars have been out there on the investigation.
On Sunday night time, a French investigative decide prolonged Durov’s detention order, French media reported on Monday. Below French legislation, Durov can stay in custody for questioning for as much as 4 days. After that, judges should determine to both cost him or launch him.
WHAT HAS BEEN THE RESPONSE?
In Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to touch upon studies of Durov’s arrest in France.
“We nonetheless don’t know what precisely Durov is being accused of,” Peskov mentioned Monday throughout his each day media convention name. “We haven’t heard any official statements on that matter.”
“Let’s wait till the fees are introduced – if they’re introduced,” Peskov mentioned.
Russian authorities officers have expressed outrage at Durov’s detention, with some calling it politically motivated and proof of the West’s double normal on freedom of speech. The outcry has raised eyebrows amongst Kremlin critics: in 2018 Russian authorities themselves tried to dam Telegram however failed, withdrawing the ban in 2020.
Elsewhere, Elon Musk, the billionaire proprietor of X who has referred to as himself a “ free speech absolutist,” has been talking out in help of Durov and posted ”#freePavel” following the arrest.
In an announcement posted on its platform after his arrest, Telegram mentioned it abides by EU legal guidelines, and its moderation is “inside business requirements and consistently enhancing.”
“It’s absurd to assert {that a} platform or its proprietor are answerable for abuse of that platform,” Telegram’s submit mentioned. “Nearly a billion customers globally use Telegram as a method of communication and as a supply of significant info. We’re awaiting a immediate decision of this example. Telegram is with you all.”
DOES TELEGRAM MODERATE CONTENT?
Western governments have typically criticized Telegram for a scarcity of content material moderation, which specialists say opens up the messaging platform for potential use in cash laundering, drug trafficking and the sharing of fabric linked to the sexual exploitation of minors.
In comparison with different messaging platforms, Telegram is “much less safe (and) extra lax when it comes to coverage and detection of unlawful content material,” mentioned David Thiel, a Stanford College researcher, who has investigated the usage of on-line platforms for youngster exploitation, at its Web Observatory.
As well as, Telegram “seems mainly unresponsive to legislation enforcement,” Thiel mentioned, including that messaging service WhatsApp “submitted over 1.3 million CyberTipline studies in 2023 (and) Telegram submits none.”
In 2022, Germany issued fines of 5.125 million euros ($5 million) in opposition to the operators of Telegram for failing to adjust to German legislation. The Federal Workplace of Justice mentioned that Telegram FZ-LLC hasn’t established a lawful method for reporting unlawful content material or named an entity in Germany to obtain official communication.
Each are required below German legal guidelines that regulate giant on-line platforms.
Final 12 months, Brazil quickly suspended Telegram over its failure to give up information on neo-Nazi exercise associated to a police inquiry into college shootings in November.
Telegram mentioned in response to the arrest that it abides by EU legal guidelines and its content material moderation is “inside business requirements and consistently enhancing.”
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Related Press Writers Barbara Surk in Good, France, and Daria Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia contributed to this story.
