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 * Why the Arrest of Telegram’s Pavel Durov Is Sparking Outrage


WHY THE ARREST OF TELEGRAM’S PAVEL DUROV IS SPARKING OUTRAGE

7 minute read
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov at the 2016 Mobile World Congress.Manuel
Blondeau/AOP.Press/Corbis--Getty Images
By Andrew R. Chow
Updated: August 28, 2024 4:42 PM EDT | Originally published: August 27, 2024
3:20 PM EDT

The arrest of a tech CEO has reignited fierce global debates about the limits of
digital freedom of speech, and how much responsibility social media companies
should bear over the content on their platforms.  

On August 24, Pavel Durov, CEO of the messaging app Telegram, was arrested at a
Paris airport as part of a larger investigation by French authorities into
criminal activity on the platform. In a press release, a French prosecutor wrote
that Telegram had refused to cooperate with authorities in their efforts to stop
the spread of child porn, drugs, and money laundering on the platform. (French
President Emmanuel Macron denied that the arrest was politically motivated.) 



But the arrest also sparked backlash from some users, who decried what they
considered to be governmental overreach and censorship. Edward Snowden called
the arrest an “assault on the basic human rights of speech and association.”

On Aug. 28, Pavel was formally charged with an array of crimes connected to
illicit activity on the app. In a statement a prosecutor said that he was
released on a $5.5 million bail but must stay in the country—and that if
convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison.



Here’s what to know about Telegram, and the implications of Durov’s arrest. 


TELEGRAM’S EMPHASIS ON FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Durov, 39, was born in Russia and founded Telegram in 2013. The project stemmed
from his deep anti-regulation bent and belief that people in countries with
oppressive governments needed an encrypted messaging system to communicate with
each other. Durov’s comments drew the ire of the Russian government, and he fled
the country in 2014. 



Telegram allows users to chat privately and in groups, or to subscribe to public
channels that disseminate information. Durov positioned Telegram as a haven for
free and secure speech. While experts have since questioned how secure most
conversations on the platform are, Telegram now has more than 900 million users
across the world. In some places, the app has fueled protest movements against
authoritarian regimes, including in Iran and Hong Kong. The app has also made
Durov, who now lives in Dubai, a billionaire.

But with its lack of moderation, Telegram has also allowed far-right extremists,
including ISIS and the Proud Boys, to communicate and recruit, as it has allowed
the groups to protect their anonymity and evade law enforcement in a way that
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has not. Durov actually embraced this type of
usership: “I think that privacy, ultimately, and our right for privacy, is more
important than our fear of bad things happening, like terrorism,” he said at a
2015 TechCrunch event, adding that he “shouldn’t feel guilty” about ISIS using
Telegram. (A few months later, though, Telegram announced it had blocked dozens
of ISIS-related channels.)

In the decade since, hate groups have flourished on Telegram. The British
advocacy group Hope not Hate wrote in 2021 that Telegram was home to “the most
extreme, genocidal and directly violent antisemitic content.” In 2023, Brazil
temporarily banned the platform during investigations into neo-Nazi groups
allegedly using the app to conduct school attacks. Law enforcement officials say
that American far-right extremists have recently been using Telegram to plan
attacks on local power infrastructure. 



And because Telegram has no explicit policies against the sharing of child
sexual abuse videos in private messages, sellers of such videos have found a
home on the platform, according to researchers. The Stanford Internet
Observatory stated that Telegram failed “to perform even basic content
enforcement on public channels,” thus allowing child porn to spread. 


BACKLASH FROM FIRST AMENDMENT DEFENDERS

For several years, the European Union—which has some of the strictest content
policies in the world—has been trying to wrangle Telegram and its large European
user base into cooperation with its rules. In 2022, the EU adopted the Digital
Services Act, forcing Telegram to comply with its transparency and moderation
standards, including taking proactive steps to police harmful and illegal
content

Ultimately, it was the French government which decided to move against Durov,
arresting him and accusing him of complicity in a range of criminal acts.
Telegram responded in a statement by asserting that the company abides by EU
laws and that Durov “has nothing to hide.” A spokesperson for the European
Commission told Euronews that Durov’s arrest did not relate to any sort of
breach of the Digital Services Act. 

Despite the gravity of these charges—and the documented amount of illegal
material shared on Telegram—Durov’s arrest sparked fierce outrage from many on
social media, particularly from libertarian-leaning figures who accused the
French government of trying to pry into private conversations. 



Elon Musk wrote “#FreePavel” on X, and warned that the arrest could start a
slippery slope leading to “being executed for liking a meme.” Vitalik Buterin,
the founder of the blockchain Ethereum, wrote that “This looks very bad and
worrying for the future of software and comms freedom in Europe.” Many others on
social media worried that the arrest would embolden governments to prosecute
tech CEOs for failing to turn over user data—or that it would lead to a
“chilling effect” in which platforms over-moderate content for fear of being
criminally charged. 

“Holding platforms liable for user speech incentivizes them to err on the side
of caution by removing any content that could conceivably lead to legal trouble,
even if it’s lawful,” Aaron Terr, the director of public advocacy for the
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), wrote to TIME in an
email. “That chilling effect is why the United States has constitutional and
statutory protections that ensure platforms can host a wide range of ideas
without facing crippling legal consequences.” 

Durov’s arrest also sparked alarm in Russia, where half of the country’s
citizens use Telegram to obtain information or communicate with others,
according to a recent poll. The Russian military uses Telegram to coordinate
actions and share documents. And a 2023 WIRED investigation raised the
possibility that the Kremlin was using Telegram to spy on dissidents. After
Durov’s arrest, Russian media sources voiced concern that the app might “become
a tool of NATO,” and called for the creation of an alternative military
messaging system. 



Read More: How Telegram Became the Digital Battlefield in the Russia-Ukraine War

The strange confluence of these different groups expressing support for Durov
did not go unnoticed by experts. “I do think it's interesting that the outrage
comes from adversarial quarters,” says Elina Treyger, a senior political
scientist at the Rand Corporation. “It’s both the Kremlin and its opponents that
are troubled by it, plus the free speech absolutists: This is not a coalition
you see often.” 

But other free speech champions argued that it would be wrong to extrapolate too
much from Durov’s arrest. Daphne Keller, an expert on platform regulation at the
Stanford Cyber Policy Center, noted on LinkedIn that while she typically
criticizes lawmakers for overregulation, Durov’s case seemed at first glance
like a simple matter of him breaking the law. “CSAM [child sexual abuse
material], terrorist content, and drug sales are all regulated by federal
criminal law,” she wrote. “Platforms have no immunity from that law.” 

Durov has been released on bail, but must check in at a police station twice a
week, according to the prosecutor's statement. Cases in the French criminal
system can take years to resolve.


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