Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of the popular messaging app Telegram, was arrested in Paris over the weekend on allegations that his platform is used for illegal activities including drug trafficking and the distribution of images of child sexual abuse.
Durov, who was born in Russia, spent much 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 arrested Saturday at Paris-Le Bourget airport in France after landing from Azerbaijan.
In a statement on its platform, Telegram said it complies with EU law and that its content moderation “falls within industry standards and is constantly being improved.” Durov, the company added, “has nothing to hide and travels regularly across Europe.”
Here are some details about Telegram, the app central to Durov’s arrest.
WHAT IS TELEGRAM?
Telegram is an app that allows for one-on-one conversations, group chats and large “channels” where people can broadcast messages to subscribers. Unlike rivals such as Meta’s WhatsApp, Telegram’s group chats allow up to 200,000 people, compared to a maximum of 1,024 for WhatsApp. Experts have raised concerns that misinformation can spread easily in group chats of this size.
Telegram offers encryption for its communications, but — contrary to popular belief — the feature is not enabled by default. Users must enable the option to encrypt their chats. It also doesn’t work with group chats. That’s in contrast to rivals Signal and Facebook Messenger, where chats are end-to-end encrypted by default.
Telegram says it has more than 950 million active users. It is widely used as a messaging tool in France, including by some officials in the presidential palace and the ministry behind the Durov investigation. But French investigators have found the app has also been used by Islamic extremists and drug traffickers.
Telegram was launched in 2013 by Durov and his brother Nikolai. According to Telegram, Pavel Durov supports the app “financially and ideologically, while Nikolai’s input is technological.”
Before Telegram, Durov founded VKontakte, Russia’s largest social network. The company came under pressure from the Russian government’s crackdown after mass pro-democracy protests rocked Moscow in late 2011 and 2012. Durov said government agencies demanded that VKontakte remove online communities of Russian opposition activists. The platform later requested that it hand over the personal data of users who participated in the 2013 uprising in Ukraine that ultimately ousted a pro-Kremlin president.
But Durov sold his stake in VKontakte after pressure from Russian authorities in 2014 and also left the country.
WHY WAS DUROV ARRESTED?
French media reported that Durov was being held on an arrest warrant, alleging that his platform was used for money laundering, drug trafficking and other crimes. As of Monday afternoon, he had not been charged and few details were available about the investigation.
On Sunday evening, a French investigating judge extended Durov’s arrest warrant, French media reported Monday. Under French law, Durov can remain in custody for questioning for up to four days, after which judges must decide whether to charge him or release him.
WHAT IS THE REACTION?
In Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on reports of Durov’s arrest in France.
“We still don’t know what exactly Durov is accused of,” Peskov said Monday at his daily press conference. “We haven’t heard any official statements on that issue.”
“Let’s wait until the charges are announced – if they are announced at all,” Peskov said.
Russian officials have expressed outrage over Durov’s arrest, with some calling it politically motivated and evidence of the West’s double standards on free speech. The protest has raised eyebrows among Kremlin critics: Russian authorities tried to block Telegram themselves in 2018, but failed, and lifted the ban in 2020.
Elsewhere, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X who calls himself a “free speech absolutist,” has spoken out in support of Durov, posting “#freePavel” after the arrest.
“It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for the misuse of that platform,” Telegram said in a message on its platform. “Almost a billion users worldwide use Telegram as a means of communication and as a source of essential information. We are waiting for a quick resolution of this situation. Telegram is with you all.”
DOES TELEGRAM MODERATE CONTENT?
Western governments have often criticized Telegram for its lack of content moderation, which experts say could allow the messaging platform to be used for money laundering, drug trafficking and sharing material related to the sexual exploitation of minors.
Compared to other messaging platforms, Telegram is “less secure (and) more lax in its policies and detection of illegal content,” said David Thiel, a Stanford University researcher who has studied the use of online platforms for child exploitation at the Internet Observatory.
Additionally, Telegram appears to be “basically unresponsive to law enforcement,” Thiel said, adding that messaging service WhatsApp “filed over 1.3 million CyberTipline reports in 2023 (and) Telegram files none.”
In 2022, Germany imposed fines of 5.125 million euros ($5 million) on Telegram operators for failing to comply with German law. The Federal Office of Justice said Telegram FZ-LLC had not established a legal way to report illegal content or designated an entity in Germany to receive official communications.
Both are required under German law regulating major online platforms.
Last year, Brazil temporarily suspended Telegram after it refused to release data on neo-Nazi activity in connection with a police investigation into school shootings in November.
Telegram said in response to the arrest that it complies with EU law and that its content moderation “falls within industry standards and is continuously improving.”
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Associated Press journalists Barbara Surk in Nice, France, and Daria Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia contributed to this story.