Telegram CEO Pavel Durov arrested in France
Pavel Durov, the 39-year-old Russian-born billionaire founder and CEO of Telegram, was arrested late Saturday night at Le Bourget airport outside Paris. The arrest came shortly after Durov arrived on a private jet from Azerbaijan and is said to be part of a joint multi-agency investigation into alleged content moderation deficiencies on the Telegram platform that may have facilitated criminal activity.
According to sources who spoke to Reuters, French authorities had spotted Pavel Durov on the passenger list. They requested his arrest based on an existing arrest warrant. Several French television reports said authorities were investigating Telegram’s alleged moderation deficiencies, which they say may have facilitated a range of illegal activities. These include child abuse in addition to terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering and fraud.
Telegram, which is based in Dubai, responded to Durov’s arrest by saying the company “complies with EU laws, including the Digital Services Act.” Its moderation practices are “in line with industry standards and are constantly improving.” The company stressed that Durov “has nothing to hide and frequently travels in Europe.” It said it was “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for the misuse of that platform.”
The arrest was criticized by various quarters, including X (Twitter) owner Elon Musk. Musk posted the hashtag #FreePavel on the platform and claimed that freedom of speech is under attack in Europe. Russian officials have also expressed concern, with the Foreign Ministry demanding consular access to Durov. The Telegram founder holds dual citizenship of France and the United Arab Emirates.
Durov, often referred to as the “Russian Mark Zuckerberg,” founded Telegram in 2013 after leaving Russia due to conflicts with the authorities. The reason was that he refused to shut down opposition communities on his former social media platform VK. In 2018, Russia began blocking Telegram after the app refused to give state security services access to users’ messages. But the ban was lifted in 2020 when Telegram agreed to help with “extremism investigations.” Telegram has since grown to nearly 1 billion users. Since the Russian invasion in 2022, it has become a key communication tool, especially in Ukraine.
The arrest of the Telegram boss has also put Telegram’s encryption practices back in the spotlight. Although Telegram is widely described as an “encrypted messaging app,” Telegram’s default settings do not provide end-to-end encryption for most users. Unlike WhatsApp and Signal, individual chats are not encrypted by default and group chats are never encrypted. This means Telegram employees may have access to every message sent in these chats. This could be why Russia is so concerned about the arrest.
True end-to-end encryption on Telegram must be configured manually via the “secret chat” setting. Furthermore, these “secret” group chats are limited to just two users. That raises questions about the platform’s efforts to protect user privacy.
