On Saturday, Pavel Durov, co-founder of social media/instant messaging application Telegram, was arrested in France. Flying in from his private plane from Azerbaijan, Durov was arrested upon landing on French soil. Authorities stated that they had gotten an arrest warrant due to Telegram’s lack of security features, leading to issues such as drug trafficking and interlocking terrorism.
Durov and the Telegram platform have gotten criticism over the years. A easy-to-use platform because of the limited entry wall (no phone number required), the site has been a viable target for scammers to use behind fake profiles.
Durov is known by many to be the Russian Mark Zuckerberg. His popularity in Russia is sky-high, as Telegram remains one of the most popular social media brands in the nation. The service, now based in Dubai, boasts an impressive 1 billion users on the app. Durov has dual citizenship for both France and the United Arab Emirates, remains close at times with Russia. However, he was forced to flee the country after he refused to give the government data on Ukrainian users on another Russian platform, VKontakte.
The company is quite lax with its content moderation, leading to both good and bad forms of free speech and journalism. Though certain benefits may arise, problems involving illegal acts remain rampant on Telegram as well. Negative boosts in misinformation, drug trafficking, and other illicit actions are still very much prevalent on the site. Once suspected of being part of the Kremlin, Durov has vehemently denied these accusations.
It will be interesting to see how Durov, Russia, and French authorities play this out.
Sources:
https://www.npr.org/2024/08/25/nx-s1-5088676/telegram-ceo-pavel-durov-arrested-france
Image Credits: Bloomberg/Getty Images
