Pavel Durov, CEO and co-founder of Telegram, has been arrested in France. Photo / Getty Images
The detention and arrest in France of Pavel Durov, the Russian-born founder and CEO of Telegram, has cast a spotlight on the popular messaging platform and its policies.
French authorities said on Monday he had been arrested for failing to moderate illegal child abuse activity on the app.
Durov launched Telegram in August 2013 with his brother, Nikolai, who developed the technological system behind the cloud-based messenger. Telegram now has more than 950 million worldwide active users, according to the company. Forbes estimates Pavel Durov’s net worth at $15 billion.
Here’s what to know about Durov, Telegram and its latest troubles.
Durov was born in 1984 in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg. His family moved to Italy when he was 4, he told Tucker Carlson in a rare interview this year. He did well in school, Durov said, adding he felt he became part European.
Ep. 94 The social media app Telegram has over 900 million users around the world. Its founder Pavel Durov sat down with us at his offices in Dubai for his first on-camera interview in almost a decade. pic.twitter.com/NEb3KzWOg8
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 16, 2024
Durov’s family moved back to Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when his father got an offer to run a department at St. Petersburg State University, he told Carlson. He and his brother excelled in math, coding and design, and by the time he was in college, he was creating websites, Durov said.
He was dubbed the “Russian Mark Zuckerberg” after the success of his social media company VKontakte, or VK - which served as the Russian answer to Facebook - but ran afoul of the Russian government when he refused to shut down opposition accounts in 2011 and hand over personal data of Ukrainian pro-democracy protesters in 2014, he said. “I had to make a difficult decision,” Durov told Carlson, adding that he could have either caved in to the demands or resigned from the company and left Russia. “I chose the latter,” he said.
Durov said he ultimately settled in Dubai for its ease of doing business, describing it as a “neutral place” geopolitically. Durov is a dual citizen of the United Arab Emirates and France, according to Telegram. It’s not clear whether he renounced his Russian citizenship.
In late July, a message posted on Durov’s official Telegram channel claimed he had fathered 100 children after donating sperm to a fertility clinic 15 years ago. “The shortage of healthy sperm has become an increasingly serious issue worldwide, and I’m proud that I did my part to help alleviate it,” the message said.
Telegram is a messaging app that lets users create channels to broadcast to large audiences. The company has touted its focus on encryption and claims to be faster and more secure than other platforms. “On top of that, private messaging on Telegram is free and will stay free - no ads, no subscription fees, forever,” Telegram says on its website.
But some experts point to misunderstandings over Telegram’s encryption services. “Telegram is often seen as an ‘encrypted messenger’, but for many users, it functions a lot more like an unencrypted social network,” John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, wrote on social media platform X. Most features on Telegram, including chats and groups, are not end-to-end-encrypted, he said, unless users opt for the encryption.
The platform says that it has never disclosed any user data to third parties, including governments.
In 2020, as Telegram approached the 500 million-user milestone, Durov promised he would not sell the platform like the founders of WhatsApp had and said he would aim to generate revenue through ads or offerings for premium users.
12 charges against Telegram CEO Pavel Durov include "providing cryptology services aiming to ensure confidentiality without certified declaration" and six counts of "complicity" with alleged criminal activity by Telegram users
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) August 26, 2024
FR & EN https://t.co/sDvjUiZJvT pic.twitter.com/j8sCP1uPep
The app’s lightly moderated messaging services have provided a platform for groups posting content that might be banned on other major social media networks, from right-wing groups to organised crime figures and militant organisations. Telegram is also popular with criminal syndicates and terrorist groups because of its encrypted messaging, which makes it hard for law enforcement authorities to monitor illegal activities.
Telegram was once a popular messaging platform for proscribed militant groups such as the Islamic State. Experts said this was due in part to its refusal to adopt the same aggressive measures used by competitors to ban such groups from their platforms. However, after the Islamic State’s 2015 Paris attacks, Telegram moved to shut down channels associated with the group.
An investigation by the Washington Post and its media partners published in March found a network of Telegram users who shared footage of child pornography and abuse or tips on how to manipulate children. Telegram did not respond to questions about that network but said it removes “millions” of pieces of harmful content each day. After reporters sought comment for that story, the platform shut down dozens of groups identified as communication hubs for the network.
In Germany, Telegram has run into trouble for extremist far-right content related to anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism. In Russia, authorities tried to pressure Telegram in 2018 to provide decryption keys amid a crackdown on freedom of expression online.
French TV channel TF1 reported on Saturday night the billionaire was detained by authorities at Bourget Airport outside Paris as he was travelling back from Azerbaijan aboard a private jet. By Monday, French authorities announced he had been arrested.
Jean-Michel Bernigaud, secretary-general of Ofmin, a French police agency focused on preventing violence against minors, said on Monday Durov’s arrest was related to the app’s inability to deal with offensive content against minors.
“At the heart of the case is the absence of moderation and co-operation on the part of the platform,” Bernigaud said, “especially in the fight against child sex crimes.”
The preliminary investigation also looked at Telegram’s failure to co-operate with law enforcement on issues including child pornography, cyberscams and organised crime, French newspaper Le Monde reported.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday on X the arrest was part of an ongoing judicial investigation. “It is in no way a political decision,” he said.
“France is more than anything attached to freedom of expression and communication, to innovation and to the spirit of enterprise,” Macron said.
Telegram said on Sunday the company abides by applicable laws in the European Union and maintains content moderation practices that are aligned with “industry standards.”
“Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe,” the company said. “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.”
Mary Ilyushina, Sammy Westfall, Pranshu Verma and Rachel Pannett contributed to this report.
'I can imagine people being outraged that TVNZ signed a deal with me.'