Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram, was arrested on Saturday evening by French police at Le Bourget Airport, an airport north of Paris after landing in his private jet.
The French and UAE citizen was allegedly arrested due to lack of moderators on his app making it a haven for criminal use for its over 950 million active users. French media reports that there was a preliminary police investigation into Telegram by French authorities before Durov was arrested. ”Telegram’s lack of content moderation and unwillingness to cooperate with law enforcement make him an accomplice to the drug trafficking, money laundering, and child pornography that allegedly occur on Telegram.”
In 2018, Russia banned the app but reversed the ban in 2021.
Telegram said in a statement, “Telegram abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act — its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving. Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe. It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform. Almost a billion users globally use Telegram as means of communication and as a source of vital information. We’re awaiting a prompt resolution of this situation. Telegram is with you all.”
The arrest has fueled calls by a section of leaders such as Robert F Kennedy and Elon Musk on protection of free speech especially as the US goes into an election in a few weeks.
“France just arrested Pavel Durov, founder & CEO of the encrypted, uncensored Telegram platform. The need to protect free speech has never been more urgent,” he wrote on his X handle.
Durov, worth about $15.5 billion and based in the UAE, also founded social network Vkontakte before founding Telegram. The Russian born founder left the country in 2014 after resisting government pressure to access user data.