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The arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France over the weekend has put the popular messaging service and its enigmatic founder under siege. In the spotlight.
Russia-born Durov was detained at Paris' Bourget airport on Saturday on a warrant related to Telegram's lack of moderation.
The charges include that Durov's platform facilitated fraudsters, money launderers, drug traffickers and those disseminating child sexual exploitation material, French prosecutor Laure Becouault said in a statement on Monday. Becouault added that Durov had allegedly refused to transmit “information and documents” relevant to the investigation.
This app includes It has come under intense scrutiny recently for its use by terrorist groups and far-right extremists.
Durov's arrest has sparked debate about freedom of speech and accountability. for Illegal content on the Internet. Maria Butina, a Russian lawmaker who was convicted on espionage charges in the United States and deported to Russia in 2019, called the CEO a “political prisoner” on Sunday, according to Reuters.
but French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement posted on X on Monday that Durov's arrest was “in no way a political decision.”
“Following the arrest of Pavel Durov, people are reading false information about France,” Macron said, adding that the arrest “was made as part of an ongoing judicial investigation.”
The Paris prosecutor's office said Monday that Durov's arrest was part of a broader investigation into a series of criminal activities on Telegram dating back to July 8, totalling 12 separate charges.
Telegram says it complies with EU law and that Durov has “nothing to hide.”
Here's what you need to know about Telegram and why it's under fire.
Telegram is an encrypted messaging service launched by Durov and his brother Nikolai in 2013. The app now has more than 950 million users, making it one of the world's most used messaging platforms, according to a post by Durov last month.
The platform has evolved into a vital service in many countries, used for everything from everyday chats, sending photos and documents to delivering government messages.
Conversations on the app are encrypted, making it unlikely that law enforcement agencies or Telegram itself would be able to monitor what users post.
Thanks to its privacy protections, Telegram has become an important communication tool in countries where freedom of speech is restricted, such as Russia, Iran and India. The app is also popular in Ukraine, where it is an important tool for disseminating war news and air raid warnings.
But those same protections have also made the service popular with drug traffickers, money launderers and extremists, including white supremacists and terrorist groups such as ISIS.
Telegram allows up to 200,000 users to join individual chat groups, where false claims can spread quickly; other encrypted services, such as Meta's WhatsApp, have much smaller group size limits.
In March, Durov told the Financial Times that the app was “closer to monetization” since introducing advertising and subscription services two years ago, adding that the company was considering an initial public offering.
Beyond its use by criminals and extremists, Telegram has also faced intense scrutiny over its role in major conflicts and political events, as well as its refusal to abandon its commitment to encryption.
Moscow tried to ban Telegram in 2018 after it refused to provide decryption keys that would allow Russian security services to read private messages. Durov vowed to fight the ban, which was eventually lifted in 2020.
Telegram gained popularity among Trump supporters and adherents of the QAnon conspiracy theory in 2021 after mainstream social media platforms such as Facebook began cracking down on false claims that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was stolen, raising concerns from the law enforcement agency that operates Telegram. They worry that disinformation could spark further violence in the real world.
Last fall, Telegram restricted access to several channels linked to or run by the militant group Hamas amid the ongoing war between Israel and the group.
And earlier this month, the messaging app began actively removing calls to violence from its platform following reports that the app was being used to organize far-right anti-immigration riots in the UK.
“Telegram moderators are actively monitoring the situation and removing channels and posts that call for violence,” Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn said in a statement. “Calls for violence are expressly prohibited by Telegram's terms of service.”
Telegram moderators actively monitor the public part of the platform, using AI tools and user reports to remove content that violates the rules, Vaughn said.
“It is absurd to claim that the platform or its owners are responsible for misuse of its platform,” Telegram said in a statement on Sunday.
Telegram's billionaire founder and CEO, Durov, was born in the Soviet Union in 1984 and says he showed an aptitude for math and programming from an early age.
Durov was just 21 and a recent college graduate when he launched the social media site Vkontakte (VK) in 2006. As the app grew, he became colloquially known as the “Russian Mark Zuckerberg.”
But when protesters began using VK to organize demonstrations in Kiev against pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2013, the Kremlin asked the site to hand over the personal data of its Ukrainian users, Durov said.
Durov refused, resigned as CEO of VK, sold his shares in the company and left Russia in 2014. “I don't want to take orders from anyone,” Durov said of his decision to quit the company and leave his home country.
Durov also founded Telegram in 2013. He currently lives in Dubai, where Telegram is headquartered, and is a French citizen.
In addition to running Telegram, Durov has become something of an online influencer on Instagram, sharing photos from his world travels (often shirtless), and claims to have fathered more than 100 children thanks to sperm donations over the past 15 years.
–Joshua Berlinger, Camille Knight and Anna Chernova contributed to this report.