Questions abound after mass messaging app’s CEO is arrested

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 on Saturday at Paris-Le Bourget airport in France after landing from Azerbaijan.

In a statement posted on its platform, Telegram said it complies with EU laws and that its content moderation is “in line with industry standards and constantly improving”. Durov, the company added, “has nothing to hide and travels frequently to Europe.”

Here are some details on Telegram, the app at the center of Durov’s arrest.

WHAT IS TELEGRAM?

Telegram is an app that allows for one-on-one conversations, group chats, and large “channels” that allow people to send messages to subscribers. Unlike rivals like Meta’s WhatsApp, Telegram’s group chats allow up to 200,000 people, compared to WhatsApp’s maximum of 1,024. Experts have expressed concern that misinformation spreads easily in group chats of this size.

Telegram offers encryption for their communications, but – contrary to popular misconception – this feature is not enabled by default. Users must enable the option to encrypt their chats. It also doesn’t work with group chats. This contrasts with rivals Signal and Facebook Messenger, where chats are end-to-end encrypted by default.

Telegram says it has over 950 million active users. It is widely used in France as a messaging tool, including by some officials in the presidential palace and the ministry behind the Durov investigation. But French investigators found the app was 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 contribution is technological.”

Before Telegram, Durov founded VKontakte, Russia’s largest social network. The company has come under pressure amid a Russian government crackdown after mass pro-democracy protests rocked Moscow in late 2011 and 2012. Durov said government authorities demanded that VKontakte remove online communities of Russian opposition activists. It later demanded the platform hand over the personal data of users who took part in the 2013 uprising in Ukraine that eventually ousted a pro-Kremlin president.

But Durov sold his stake in VKontakte after pressure from the Russian authorities in 2014. He also left the country. Today, Telegram is headquartered in Dubai, which Durov called “the best place for a neutral platform like ours if we want to make sure we can defend the privacy and freedom of expression of our users” in an April interview with a conservative talk show. host Tucker Carlson.

WHY WAS DUROV ARRESTED?

French media reported that Durov was detained under 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 detention order, French media reported on Monday. Under French law, Durov can remain in custody for questioning for up to four days. After that, the judges have to decide whether to charge him or release him.

WHAT WAS THE ANSWER?

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 during his daily press conference on Monday. “I haven’t heard any official statement on this.”

“Let’s wait until the charges are announced — if they are announced,” Peskov said.

Russian government officials have expressed outrage at Durov’s detention, with some seeing it as politically motivated and evidence of the West’s double standard on free speech. The outcry raised eyebrows among Kremlin critics: In 2018, Russian authorities tried to block Telegram but failed, lifting the ban in 2020.

Elsewhere, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, who called himself a “free speech absolutist”, spoke out in support of Durov and tweeted “#freePavel” after the arrest.

In a statement posted on its platform after his arrest, Telegram said it complies with EU laws and its moderation “is within industry standards and is constantly improving”.

“It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for the abuse of that platform,” the Telegram post said. “Nearly one billion users globally use Telegram as a means of communication and as a source of vital information. We expect a prompt resolution of this situation. Telegram is with you all.”

TELEGRAM MODERATE CONTENT?

Western governments have often criticized Telegram for its lack of content moderation, which experts say opens the messaging platform up for potential use in money laundering, drug trafficking and the sharing of material related to the sexual exploitation of minors.

Compared to other messaging platforms, Telegram is “less secure (and) more lax in terms of policy and detection of illegal content,” said David Thiel, a researcher at Stanford University who has investigated the use of online platforms for child exploitation. at the Internet Observatory.

In addition, Telegram “seems virtually unresponsive to law enforcement,” Thiel said, adding that messaging service WhatsApp “submitted more than 1.3 million CyberTipline reports in 2023 (and) Telegram is not sending any.”

In 2022, Germany issued fines of 5.125 million euros ($5 million) against Telegram operators for non-compliance with German law. The Federal Office of Justice said that Telegram FZ-LLC did not establish a legal way to report illegal content and did not appoint an entity in Germany to receive official communications.

Both are required by German laws governing large online platforms.

Last year, Brazil temporarily suspended Telegram over its failure to hand over data on neo-Nazi activity linked to a police investigation into the November school shootings.

Telegram said in response to the arrest that it complies with EU laws and that its content moderation is “in line with industry standards and constantly improving”.

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Associated Press writers Barbara Surk in Nice, France, and Daria Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia contributed to this story.