Pavel Durov, founder and chief executive of encrypted messaging app Telegram, is facing charges for crimes related to the platform, including complicity in distributing child abuse material, illegal drugs, and hacking software.
Telegram – which recently reached 950 million monthly users – champions confidentiality and a censorship-free internet.
The company brands itself on a “revolutionary” privacy policy, boasts never passing users’ personal information to law enforcement authorities, and allows users to create groups which can broadcast to up to 200,000 members.
As such, Telegram has earned a dubious, dark-web-like reputation for effectively allowing droves of extremist groups, drug traders and cyber criminal outfits a platform to gather in private.
While the founders of Telegram – Russia-born Durov and his brother Nikolai – have largely dodged any legal repercussions for how the app is used, French authorities issued arrest warrants for the brothers in March.
By late August, Durov was arrested by French police after landing in the country on a private jet, and the internet soon after exploded with criticisms that France was punishing ‘free speech’.
Durov has now been handed a number of preliminary charges, including complicity in the distribution of illegal drugs, explicit images of children, and hacking software on the app.
Most notable of these initial charges is one for complicity in “web-mastering” or managing an online platform to allow illicit transactions by an organised group – which the ABC reports can net up to 10 years in prison and an $816,000 (€500,000) fine.
A statement from the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office authorities on 26 August also laid out charges for complicity in organised fraud, before further charging Durov with refusing to cooperate with investigations into illegal activity on the platform.
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau cited “an almost complete absence of response from Telegram to judicial demands”.
Durov has been released on an $8 million bail (€5 million) – with Russian state news agency RIA sharing a purported video of his release on Telegram.
X erupts over free speech concerns
While this is far from the first time a tech entrepreneur has been held to account for the way their platform is used, the charges against Durov are unique because Telegram is effectively a messaging platform.
Durov’s arrest and subsequent charges have fuelled a bin fire of discourse on social media platform X – where droves of accounts have deemed France’s actions undemocratic.
“Pavel Durov's arrest feels like a page out of a dystopian novel,” said X user readbookbrief.
“Free speech is what the governments want to crush,” posted X user TheWorldGame12.
“How crazy to think that Pavel Durov is being charged for creating an app where governments can’t spy on our private discussions,” said crypto currency commentator Ran Neuner.
X owner Elon Musk yielded some 400,000 likes after he backed Durov in a post titled “#FreePavel” alongside a video of him discussing freedom of speech, while whistleblower Edward Snowden said the arrest “lowers not only France, but the world”.
Durov first started his career as a tech entrepreneur in 2006 when he launched Russian-oriented social network Vkontakte (VK)".
He gained clout during 2012’s anti-Putin protests in Russia, during which he refused to shut down protest groups which were organising themselves on the platform.
Furthermore, Durov left Russia in 2014 after refusing to hand the personal details of VK users to Russian security services – only one year after establishing Telegram.
To date, Telegram has many valid use cases – it provides a service for countless privacy-minded users, enables organisations to communicate announcements en-masse, and has been used by pro-democracy advocates living under authoritarian governments.
Conversely, Telegrams’ flagship privacy policy has meant better anonymity for those looking to perform criminal activities.
The app has been an integral part of popular hacking forums LeakBase and BreachForums, whose members use Telegram to exchange information and sell data from cyber breaches, while drug traders have been using the app both domestically and abroad since the 2010s.
Telegram has issued a statement suggesting the app abides with European laws.
“It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform,” said Telegram.
Durov is currently barred from leaving France as the investigation takes place.
