Islamabad, Aug 25: Pavel Durov, the creator and CEO of the messaging app Telegram and a Russian-French millionaire, was detained on Saturday night at the Bourget airport south of Paris, according to TF1 TV and BFM TV, who cited unnamed sources,
According to TF1’s website, Durov was traveling in his private plane. It also stated that he was the subject of a French arrest warrant as part of an initial police probe. According to TF1 and BFM, the police believed that the absence of moderators on Telegram allowed illegal conduct to continue unchecked, and this was the main focus of the inquiry.
It is conceivable that Durov may be charged on Sunday, according to French media, with nearly one billion users, the encrypted messaging app Telegram holds significant sway in Russia, Ukraine, and the former Soviet Union’s member states. It comes in second place among the main social media networks, behind Wechat, Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok.
Remarks from Telegram were not immediately available after Reuters reached out to them. Both the French police and Interior Ministry remained silent. Durov, a Russian native, and his brother launched Telegram in 2013. After defying orders from the authorities to close down opposition communities on his sold social networking platform VKontakte, he departed Russia in 2014.
When asked in April about his decision to leave Russia and look for a new home for his business, which includes stays in Berlin, London, Singapore, and San Francisco, Durov told American journalist Tucker Carlson, “I would rather be free than to take orders from anyone.”
Authorities in La Grande-Motte, a city in southern France, were looking for the guy who set a synagogue on fire on Saturday. Telegram has emerged as the primary platform for uncensored, sometimes explicit, and sometimes inaccurate communication from both sides regarding the war and the politics underlying it, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The website, which is actively utilized by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his aides, has evolved into what some experts refer to as “a virtual battlefield” for the conflict, in addition to the Russian authorities.
After the Kremlin tightened restrictions on alternative media following its invasion of Ukraine, Telegram which enables users to avoid official scrutiny has emerged as one of the only locations where Russians may obtain independent news about the war. The Russian foreign ministry urged Western non-governmental organizations to seek Durov’s release and stated that its mission in Paris was providing clarification on the situation surrounding him.
In 2018, Telegram was blocked in Russia after the app disobeyed a court order to provide access to its users’ encrypted messages to state security services. Although several third-party services were disrupted, Telegram’s availability was largely unaffected. NGOs criticized the ban order, nevertheless, and it also triggered large-scale protests in Moscow.
“NEUTRAL PLATFORM”
Forbes estimated Durov’s wealth to be $15.5 billion. He claimed that despite pressure from some governments, the app should continue to be a “neutral platform” and not a “player in geopolitics”. However, because to security and data breach worries, several European nations, including France, have begun to closely monitor Telegram as its popularity grows.
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s envoy to international organizations in Vienna, along with a number of other Russian lawmakers swiftly charged on Sunday that France was functioning as a dictatorship. This accusation is similar to what Moscow received when it attempted to outlaw Telegram in 2018 and placed demands on Durov in 2014.
“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 stated on X.
Following news of Durov’s arrest, billionaire Elon Musk, the owner of the social media company X (previously known as Twitter), remarked, “It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme.”
After the reports, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stated on X that the need to defend free speech “has never been more urgent.” Kennedy Jr. had given up on his bid for the presidency on Friday and had embraced Republican Donald Trump. On Sunday at noon, a number of Russian bloggers called for demonstrations outside French embassies worldwide.
