Who is Telegram founder Pavel Durov? Everything you need to know about his arrest in France | Social Media News

Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov was arrested at Paris-Le Bourget airport on Saturday after arriving on a private plane from Baku, Azerbaijan.

He is accused of not moderating criminal activities on the platform.

Here’s what we know about Durov, Telegram and the case:

Who is Durov and why was he arrested?

Durov, 39, was a Russian-born co-founder of VKontakte, one of Russia's most popular social networks, in his hometown of St. Petersburg in 2007. He is compared to Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.

In 2013, he made headlines around the world when he publicly offered whistleblower and former NSA employee Edward Snowden a job.

In an interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson earlier this year, Durov claimed he was under pressure to give Russian authorities access to the account details of Ukrainian democracy activists dating back to 2014 – but he refused to do so.

As the Russian government tightened its grip on the Internet and President Vladimir Putin's allies began to take control of VKontakte, Durov sold his stake in the platform in 2014 and fled the country.

He then shifted his focus to Telegram, an app he founded with his brother Nikolai at the age of 28.

According to Telegram, Durov lives in Dubai and is a citizen of the United Arab Emirates and France. It is unclear whether he has renounced his Russian citizenship.

The business magazine Forbes estimated his fortune at 15.5 billion dollars on Sunday morning.

Telegram co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov delivers a keynote speech during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona [File: Albert Gea/Reuters]

Durov has been cautious about moderation, calling the app private and censored, but some experts warn that this approach has led to Telegram becoming a hotspot for illegal activity and extremism.

According to a report by the AFP news agency, he was “arrested for suspected crimes on Telegram ranging from fraud, drug trafficking and cyberbullying to organized crime, including promoting terrorism and fraud.”

While the European Union and the United States have fined other social media platforms for violating their rules and regulations, and their lawmakers have summoned executives of digital companies to public hearings, there are no reports of arrests of major technology leaders.

In 2016, a senior Facebook executive was arrested in Brazil after the company failed to disclose WhatsApp information in connection with a drug trafficking investigation. WhatsApp is owned by Facebook's parent company, which was renamed Meta in 2021.

What is Telegram?

Launched in August 2013, Telegram is a cloud-based messaging app. The platform allows users to send messages, photos, and large files, as well as create groups for “up to 200,000 people or channels for broadcasting to an unlimited audience.”

These features, coupled with the app's minimal moderation, made it an ideal meeting place for individuals and groups banned from other platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

Since its inception, the platform's popularity has grown rapidly; it now has nearly a billion active users and has become an important communication tool in conflict zones, including the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The Telegram development team is currently based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

According to a report by Statista, Telegram is the third most downloaded messenger app in the world after WhatsApp and Snapchat.

In 2023, India, Russia and the US were the app's top markets in terms of downloads. In 2021, it was the most downloaded app worldwide with one billion downloads.

Telegram says Durov “supports Telegram financially and ideologically.” The platform explicitly avoids “politically motivated censorship,” but says it blocks “terrorist bots and channels.”

The platform makes its money through advertising revenue and a premium subscription program introduced two years ago.

“We hope to become profitable next year, if not this year,” Durov told the Financial Times in March.

“The main reason we started monetizing is that we wanted to remain independent,” he said. “In general, we see value in [an IPO] as a means to democratize access to Telegram’s value.”

The messaging app Telegram can be seen on an iPhone
The messaging app Telegram is seen on an iPhone screen in Warsaw, Poland on August 25, 2024 [Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images]

How did Russia react to Durov’s arrest?

Relations between Russia and Durov have been fraught with tension. After Durov left the country, Russia began blocking Telegram in 2018 when the app refused to give state security services access to users' encrypted messages. The ban was lifted in 2020, although the app – like other online platforms in Russia – faces censorship and government control.

However, after the businessman's arrest, Russia reacted quickly: the Russian embassy in France demanded consular access to Durov and demanded that he be able to exercise his rights.

Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's permanent representative to the United Nations in Vienna, accused France of behaving like a “totalitarian” society, while calling Durov “naive” for believing the West's claims to defend freedom of expression.

“Some naive people still do not understand that it is not safe for them to visit countries that are moving towards more totalitarian societies if they play a more or less visible role in the international information space,” Ulyanov wrote on X.

According to Ben Aris, Russia observer and editor of the bne IntelliNews agency, Durov flew from Azerbaijan, where Putin has been staying for several days.

“It was about him being there to influence Putin to prevent Telegram from being blocked or shut down in Russia,” Aris told Al Jazeera.

Demonstrators hold up a symbolic portrait of the co-founder of the messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, to protest against the blocking of the app.
Demonstrators hold up a symbolic portrait of messaging app Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov during a May Day rally in St. Petersburg, Russia, on May 1, 2018, protesting against the blocking of the app in Russia. [Dmitri Lovetsky/AP]

Separately, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel on Sunday: “He thought his biggest problems were in Russia and left the country … he wanted to be a brilliant 'citizen of the world' who could live well without a homeland.”

“He miscalculated. To our common enemies, he is still a Russian – unpredictable and dangerous, of a different origin.”

What about other reactions to Durov’s arrest?

Elon Musk, the owner of X, posted #FreePavel on the platform.

“It's 2030 in Europe and you're being executed for liking a meme,” he added.

“Durov’s arrest is not only incredibly unfair given the current charges (it is clear that Durov is not involved in terrorism or arms trafficking), but also a serious blow to freedom of speech,” Georgy Alburov, a Russian political activist with the Anti-Corruption Foundation of the late opposition leader Alexey Navalny, said on X.

“Freedom for Pavel Durov,” he added.

Edward Snowden described the arrest as “an attack on the fundamental human rights of freedom of expression and association.”

Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson also sharply attacked the French government.

Former U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who dropped out of the race last week to support Donald Trump in the November election, also endorsed Durov in a post on X.

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