Who’s Telegram founder Pavel Durov? All to find out about his arrest in France | Social Media Information

Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov was detained on the Paris-Le Bourget airport on Saturday, after arriving by a personal aircraft from Baku, Azerbaijan.

He’s accused of getting didn’t average prison exercise on the platform.

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

Who’s Durov and why was he detained?

Russian-born Durov, 39, co-founded what turned one among Russia’s hottest social media networks, VKontakte, in his native St Petersburg, in 2007. He has been in contrast with Fb co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.

In 2013, he grabbed world headlines by publicly providing a job to whistleblower and former Nationwide Safety Company contractor Edward Snowden.

In an interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson earlier this 12 months, Durov claimed that he was below strain to present Russian authorities entry to knowledge from accounts of Ukrainian pro-democracy activists in 2014 — and that he refused to take action.

Because the Russian authorities tightened its grip on the web and President Vladimir Putin’s allies began to take management of VKontakte, Durov offered his stake within the platform in 2014 and fled the nation.

He then shifted his focus to Telegram, an app he co-founded together with his brother Nikolai when he was 28.

Durov has been residing in Dubai and is a citizen of the United Arab Emirates and France, in response to Telegram. It’s unclear whether or not he has given up his Russian citizenship.

Enterprise journal Forbes estimates his wealth at $15.5bn, as of Sunday morning.

Durov has maintained a hands-off stance on moderation, positioning the app as personal and censorship. Nonetheless, some specialists have cautioned that this method has led to Telegram turning into a hotspot for illicit exercise and extremism.

In accordance with a report by the AFP information company, he was detained “over offences alleged to have been performed on Telegram, starting from fraud, to drug trafficking, cyberbullying and organised crime, together with selling terrorism and fraud.”

Whereas the European Union and the US have fined different social media platforms for violations their guidelines and laws, and their lawmakers have hauled up leaders of digital companies for public hearings, they don’t seem to be identified to have arrested main tech leaders.

In 2016, a senior Fb government was arrested in Brazil after the corporate didn’t give info from WhatsApp associated to a drug trafficking investigation. The mother or father firm of Fb, which was renamed Meta in 2021, owns WhatsApp.

What’s Telegram?

Launched in August 2013, Telegram is a cloud-based messaging app. The platform permits customers to ship messages, photographs and enormous information in addition to create teams for “as much as 200,000 individuals or channels for broadcasting to limitless audiences”.

These options, coupled with the app’s minimal moderation, made it a really perfect venue for people and teams banned from different platforms reminiscent of Twitter and Fb.

Since its creation, the platform has surged in reputation; it now has almost one billion energetic customers and has emerged as an vital communication device in battle zones, together with the Russia-Ukraine battle.

The Telegram growth group is presently primarily based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

⚖️ Telegram abides by EU legal guidelines, together with the Digital Companies Act — its moderation is inside trade requirements and always bettering.

✈️ Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to cover and travels steadily in Europe.

😵‍💫 It’s absurd to assert {that a} platform or its proprietor…

— Telegram Messenger (@telegram) August 25, 2024

In accordance with a report by Statista, Telegram is the third most downloaded messenger app globally following WhatsApp and Snapchat.

In 2023, India, Russia, and the US had been the app’s high markets primarily based on obtain figures. In 2021, it was essentially the most downloaded app worldwide with one billion downloads.

Telegram says that Durov “helps Telegram financially and ideologically”. The platform particularly stays away from “politically motivated censorship”, nevertheless, it specifies that it does block “terrorist bots and channels”.

The platform makes cash by way of income from promoting and a premium subscription programme launched two years in the past.

“We hope to develop into worthwhile subsequent 12 months, if not this 12 months,” Durov informed the Monetary Occasions in March.

“The primary motive why we began to monetise is as a result of we wished to stay impartial,” he stated. “Usually talking, we see worth in [an IPO] as a way to democratise entry to Telegram’s worth.”

How has Russia responded to Durov’s arrest?

The connection between Russia and Durov has been fraught with stress. After Durov left the nation, Russia started blocking Telegram in 2018 when the app refused to supply state safety companies with entry to customers’ encrypted messages. The ban was lifted in 2020, although the app — like different on-line platforms in Russia — faces censorship and authorities scrutiny.

Nonetheless, after the entrepreneur’s arrest, Russia was fast to reply, and its embassy in France demanded consular entry to Durov and demanded that he have entry to his rights.

Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s everlasting consultant to the United Nations in Vienna, accused France of appearing as a “totalitarian” society — whereas additionally calling Durov “naive” for believing in Western claims to defend the liberty of speech.

“Some naive individuals nonetheless don’t perceive that in the event that they play kind of seen function in worldwide info area it isn’t secure for them to go to international locations which transfer in direction of rather more totalitarian societies,” Ulyanov wrote on X.

In accordance with Ben Aris, Russia watcher and editor of the company bne IntelliNews, Durov was flying from Azerbaijan the place Putin has been for the previous few days.

“The speak was that he was there desirous to foyer Putin so as to forestall having Telegram blocked or turned off inside Russia,” Aris informed Al Jazeera.

Individually, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Sunday wrote on his Telegram channel: “He thought his greatest issues had been in Russia and left … he wished to be an excellent ‘citizen of the world’, residing properly with no homeland.”

“He miscalculated. To our frequent enemies, he’s nonetheless Russian – unpredictable and harmful, of various blood.”

What about different reactions to Durov’s arrest?

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

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

POV: It’s 2030 in Europe and also you’re being executed for liking a meme https://t.co/OkZ6YS3u2P

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 24, 2024

“Durov’s arrest, other than being extremely unjust primarily based on the present prices (it’s clear that Durov isn’t concerned in terrorism or arms trafficking), can be a major blow to freedom of speech,” Georgy Alburov, a Russian political activist with the late opposition chief Alexey Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Basis, stated on X.

“Freedom for Pavel Durov,” he added.

Edward Snowden referred to as the arrest “an assault on the fundamental human rights of speech and affiliation”.

The arrest of @Durov is an assault on the fundamental human rights of speech and affiliation. I’m stunned and deeply saddened that Macron has descended to the extent of taking hostages as a way for getting access to personal communications. It lowers not solely France, however the world.

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) August 25, 2024

Former Fox Information host Tucker Carlson additionally hit out on the French authorities.

Pavel Durov left Russia when the federal government tried to manage his social media firm, Telegram. However in the long run, it wasn’t Putin who arrested him for permitting the general public to train free speech. It was a western nation, a Biden administration ally and enthusiastic NATO member,… https://t.co/F83E9GbNHC

— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 24, 2024

Former US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr, who dropped out of the race final week to endorse Donald Trump for the November election, additionally backed Durov in a submit on X.

France simply arrested Pavel Durov, founder & CEO of the encrypted, uncensored Telegram platform. The necessity to shield free speech has by no means been extra pressing.

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) August 25, 2024