Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov was once detained on the Paris-Le Bourget airport on Saturday, nearest arriving through a personal airplane from Baku, Azerbaijan.
He’s accused of getting didn’t average illegal activity at the platform.
Here’s what we learn about Durov, Telegram and the case:
Who’s Durov and why was once he detained?
Russian-born Durov, 39, co-founded what changed into considered one of Russia’s maximum widespread social media networks, VKontakte, in his local St Petersburg, in 2007. He has been when put next with Fb co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.
In 2013, he grabbed international headlines through publicly providing a role to whistleblower and previous Nationwide Safety Company contractor Edward Snowden.
In an interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson previous this hour, Durov claimed that he was once underneath force to present Russian government get right of entry to to information from accounts of Ukrainian pro-democracy activists in 2014 — and that he refused to take action.
Because the Russian executive tightened its bear on the net and President Vladimir Putin’s allies began to whisk regulate of VKontakte, Durov bought his stake within the platform in 2014 and fled the rustic.
He next shifted his focal point to Telegram, an app he co-founded along with his brother Nikolai when he was once 28.
Durov has been dwelling in Dubai and is a citizen of the United Arab Emirates and France, in step with Telegram. It’s vague whether or not he has give up his Russian citizenship.
Trade novel Forbes estimates his wealth at $15.5bn, as of Sunday morning.
Durov has maintained a hands-off stance on moderation, positioning the app as non-public and censorship. However, some professionals have cautioned that this method has ended in Telegram changing into a hotspot for illicit process and extremism.
In line with a record through the AFP information company, he was once detained “over offences alleged to have been conducted on Telegram, ranging from fraud, to drug trafficking, cyberbullying and organised crime, including promoting terrorism and fraud.”
Month the Ecu Union and the US have fined alternative social media platforms for violations their regulations and rules, and their lawmakers have hauled up leaders of virtual companies for family hearings, they aren’t recognized to have arrested main tech leaders.
In 2016, a senior Fb govt was once arrested in Brazil nearest the corporate didn’t give data from WhatsApp homogeneous to a drug trafficking investigation. The guardian corporate of Fb, which was once renamed Meta in 2021, owns WhatsApp.
What’s Telegram?
Introduced in August 2013, Telegram is a cloud-based messaging app. The platform permits customers to ship messages, pictures and massive information in addition to build teams for “up to 200,000 people or channels for broadcasting to unlimited audiences”.
Those options, coupled with the app’s minimum moderation, made it a super venue for people and teams restrained from alternative platforms corresponding to Twitter and Fb.
Since its origination, the platform has surged in reputation; it now has just about a billion energetic customers and has emerged as an notable conversation device in war zones, together with the Russia-Ukraine warfare.
The Telegram construction crew is recently founded in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
⚖️ Telegram abides through EU rules, together with the Virtual Products and services Employment — its moderation is inside trade requirements and repeatedly making improvements to.
✈️ Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov has not anything to cover and travels steadily in Europe.
😵💫 It’s absurd to assert {that a} platform or its proprietor…
— Telegram Messenger (@telegram) August 25, 2024
In line with a record through Statista, Telegram is the 3rd maximum downloaded messenger app globally following WhatsApp and Snapchat.
In 2023, Bharat, Russia, and the USA have been the app’s supremacy markets according to obtain figures. In 2021, it was once probably the most downloaded app international with a billion downloads.
Telegram says that Durov “supports Telegram financially and ideologically”. The platform in particular remains clear of “politically motivated censorship”, then again, it specifies that it does oppose “terrorist bots and channels”.
The platform makes cash via earnings from promoting and a top class subscription programme introduced two years in the past.
“We are hoping to become profitable next year, if not this year,” Durov informed the Monetary Instances in March.
“The main reason why we started to monetise is because we wanted to remain independent,” he mentioned. “Generally speaking, we see value in [an IPO] as a means to democratise access to Telegram’s value.”
How has Russia answered to Durov’s arrest?
The connection between Russia and Durov has been fraught with rigidity. Nearest Durov left the rustic, Russia started blockading Telegram in 2018 when the app refused to grant atmosphere safety services and products with get right of entry to to customers’ encrypted messages. The block was once lifted in 2020, regardless that the app — like alternative on-line platforms in Russia — faces censorship and executive scrutiny.
On the other hand, nearest the entrepreneur’s arrest, Russia was once fast to reply, and its embassy in France demanded consular get right of entry to to Durov and demanded that he have get right of entry to to his rights.
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s everlasting consultant to the United Countries in Vienna, accused France of appearing as a “totalitarian” community — life additionally calling Durov “naive” for believing in Western claims to safeguard the liberty of pronunciation.
“Some naive persons still don’t understand that if they play more or less visible role in international information space it is not safe for them to visit countries which move towards much more totalitarian societies,” Ulyanov wrote on X.
In line with Ben Aris, Russia watcher and essayist of the company bne IntelliNews, Durov was once flight from Azerbaijan the place Putin has been for the ultimate few days.
“The talk was that he was there wanting to lobby Putin in order to prevent having Telegram blocked or turned off inside Russia,” Aris informed Al Jazeera.
One by one, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday wrote on his Telegram channel: “He thought his biggest problems were in Russia and left … he wanted to be a brilliant ‘citizen of the world’, living well without a homeland.”
“He miscalculated. To our common enemies, he is still Russian – unpredictable and dangerous, of different blood.”
What about alternative reactions to Durov’s arrest?
Elon Musk, the landlord of X, posted #FreePavel at the platform.
“It’s 2030 in Europe and you are being executed for liking a meme,” he added.
POV: It’s 2030 in Europe and also you’re being performed for liking a meme https://t.co/OkZ6YS3u2P
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 24, 2024
“Durov’s arrest, aside from being incredibly unjust based on the current charges (it’s clear that Durov isn’t involved in terrorism or arms trafficking), is also a significant blow to freedom of speech,” Georgy Alburov, a Russian political activist with the overdue opposition chief Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Underpinning, mentioned on X.
“Freedom for Pavel Durov,” he added.
Edward Snowden known as the arrest “an assault on the basic human rights of speech and association”.
The arrest of @Durov is an attack at the modest human rights of pronunciation and affiliation. I’m shocked and deeply saddened that Macron has descended to the extent of taking hostages as a way for having access to non-public communications. It lowers no longer handiest France, however the international.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) August 25, 2024
Former Fox Information host Tucker Carlson additionally collision out on the French executive.
Pavel Durov left Russia when the federal government attempted to regulate his social media corporate, Telegram. However after all, it wasn’t Putin who arrested him for permitting the family to workout isolated pronunciation. It was once a western nation, a Biden management best friend and ambitious NATO member,… https://t.co/F83E9GbNHC
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 24, 2024
Former US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, who dropped out of the race ultimate presen to endorse Donald Trump for the November election, additionally subsidized Durov in a put up on X.
France simply arrested Pavel Durov, founder & CEO of the encrypted, uncensored Telegram platform. The desire to offer protection to isolated pronunciation hasn’t ever been extra pressing.
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 25, 2024