Pavel Durov’s laissez-faire angle to regulation made messaging app Telegram into an enormous and gave him a platform to conflict with officers from Moscow to Brussels from his perch in Dubai. His determination to repeatedly ignore requests from governments to higher average content material on his platform reached a tipping level on August 24, when he was detained in France over allegations that Telegram didn’t adequately fight crime on the app, together with the unfold of kid sexual abuse materials.
Telegram has been reluctant to take away all however probably the most violent content material underneath Durov, who has a internet value of $9.2 billion, based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The 39-year-old has styled himself as a radical libertarian and cultivates a glance riffing off of Keanu Reeves’ Neo character in The Matrix, often sporting an all-black wardrobe.
Born in Russia and having spent a lot of his childhood in Italy, Durov is a citizen of France, Russia, the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis, and the United Arab Emirates. He typically paperwork his globetrotting life, not too long ago posting photos of his travels all through Central Asia.
Regardless of the carefree picture, Durov faces heightened strain to monetise Telegram, which is free to make use of. Forward of a $2.4 billion bond maturing in March 2026, the platform has been attempting to make cash off of its 900 million customers. Durov’s arrest is all however sure to complicate efforts to take the corporate public, a route he has indicated he favours over promoting it at valuations he claims are in extra of $30 billion.
It additionally units up a battle over free speech, with X proprietor Elon Musk and former US Nationwide Safety Company contractor Edward Snowden amongst those that have condemned the arrest.
Big selection of allegations
Durov is being interrogated as a part of a case initiated by a cybercrime unit of the Paris prosecutor’s workplace. Investigative judges dealing with the case are trying into a variety of allegations, which embody refusing to assist authorities run authorized wiretaps on suspects, enabling the sale of kid sexual abuse materials, and aiding and abetting drug trafficking.
In an announcement posted to its platform, Telegram stated it abides by EU legal guidelines and its content material moderation is “inside business requirements and continuously enhancing”. Durov, the corporate added, “has nothing to cover and travels often in Europe”.
“It’s absurd to assert {that a} platform or its proprietor are chargeable for abuse of that platform,” Telegram’s submit stated. “Nearly a billion customers globally use Telegram as a way of communication and as a supply of significant info. We’re awaiting a immediate decision of this case. Telegram is with you all.”
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Durov couldn’t be reached for remark. The UAE requested French officers for entry to Durov, and is “carefully following the case”, the nation’s international ministry stated in an announcement on August 27.
Earlier, the Russian embassy in France had demanded entry to Durov, who was born in St Petersburg and lived in Russia till 2013. Russian authorities officers have expressed outrage at Durov’s detention, with some calling it politically motivated and proof of the West’s double customary 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.
Lightning rod
Telegram has lengthy been a lightning rod for controversy. European Union officers argue it fuels disinformation, together with conspiracy theories that sparked current anti-immigrant rioting within the UK and allegations that Russian intelligence providers used the location to recruit brokers. The EU has checked out how the platform studies its variety of customers to see if it could actually apply its Digital Providers Act to drive Durov to higher average content material.
Durov has repeatedly ignored requests from democratic and authoritarian governments alike to higher average content material on his platform. European Union officers argue Telegram fuels disinformation and promotes pro-Kremlin propaganda. Russia, for its half, tried and failed to dam the app after it refused to show over person messages.
Launched in 2013 by Durov and his brother Nikolai, Telegram releases little or no monetary info, making pinning down its worth harder than many different social media and messaging platforms. Telegram says that Pavel Durov helps the app “financially and ideologically whereas Nikolai’s enter is technological”. Durov is the only proprietor of the corporate, based on Securities and Alternate Fee filings.
A novel social community
Telegram permits for one-on-one conversations, group chats, and huge “channels” that permit folks broadcast messages to subscribers. In contrast to rivals similar to Meta’s WhatsApp, Telegram’s group chats permit as many as 2,00,000 folks, in comparison with a most of 1,024 for WhatsApp. Specialists have raised issues that misinformation spreads simply in group chats of that dimension.
Telegram presents customers end-to-end encryption for his or her communications, however—opposite to a well-liked false impression—this function is just not on by default. Customers have to modify on the choice. It additionally doesn’t work with group chats. That contrasts with rivals Sign and Fb Messenger, the place chats are encrypted end-to-end by default. “That implies that Telegram can entry their contents,” stated John Scott-Railton, senior researcher on the College of Toronto’s Citizenlab. “Solely Telegram’s opt-in ‘secret chat’ function is end-to-end encrypted, which might forestall Telegram from accessing the chat contents.”
Demonstrators with a icon stylised portray depicting Telegram’s founder Pavel Durov protest towards the blocking of the favored messaging app in Russia, throughout a Could Day rally in St Petersburg on Could 1, 2018.
| Photograph Credit score:
OLGA MALTSEVA/AFP
Telegram is exclusive amongst main social media networks in that it doesn’t use algorithms to advertise content material to its customers. As an alternative, customers subscribe to channels and see posts and movies in chronological order. Whereas that lets the platform argue it solely serves customers what they select to see, unhealthy actors have exploited the platform’s construction by posting inflammatory content material in mainstream channels after which bringing new followers into extra radicalised chat communities.
Telegram says it has greater than 950 million lively customers. It’s broadly utilized in France as a messaging software, together with by some officers within the presidential palace and the ministry behind the investigation into Durov. However French investigators have additionally discovered the app has been utilized by Islamic extremists and drug traffickers.
In comparison with different messaging platforms, Telegram is “much less safe (and) extra lax by way of coverage and detection of unlawful content material,” stated David Thiel, a Stanford College researcher, who has investigated using on-line platforms for little one exploitation, at its Web Observatory. As well as, Telegram “seems mainly unresponsive to legislation enforcement,” Thiel stated, including that messaging service WhatsApp “submitted over 1.3 million CyberTipline studies in 2023 (and) Telegram submits none.”
The location performed a central position in coordinating violent demonstrations in August within the UK the place anti-migrant demonstrators clashed with police and threatened immigrant communities, stated Moustafa Ayad, an government director on the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, a suppose tank that tracks extremism. Others have used Telegram to disseminate bomb-making directions and guides on how one can shoot at US energy stations as a part of plans to trigger havoc.
In 2022, Germany issued fines of 5.125 million euros ($5 million on the time) towards the operators of Telegram for failing to adjust to German legislation with respect to reporting unlawful content material. Brazil briefly suspended Telegram in 2023 over its failure to give up information on neo-Nazi exercise associated to a police inquiry into faculty shootings in November.
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Earlier than Telegram, Durov based Fb-lookalike VKontakte in 2006, which grew to Russia’s largest social community thanks partially to the simple sharing of pirated films and music. In 2012, he and a colleague threw 5,000 ruble notes—value over $150 every on the time—from their workplace window in central St Petersburg. Durov additionally took a stand towards Russia’s KGB successor, the Federal Safety Service, when it sought to get VKontakte to close down protest teams that shaped in 2011.
Durov in the end was pressured to promote his stake in VKontakte. He claims he left Russia after refusing to show over information on Ukrainian customers throughout the nation’s 2013 Maidan protests, which led to the overthrow of its pro-Kremlin chief Viktor Yanukovych.
(with inputs from businesses)
