Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France on Saturday, surprising the tech world. The 39-year-old Russian-born billionaire was detained after his private jet landed at an airport outside Paris. Lacking details, observers are wondering what this unprecedented action means for free speech, encryption and the risks of running a platform that could be used for crime.
On Monday, French officials revealed that Durov was being questioned as part of a broad criminal investigation into crimes that frequently occur on Telegram. While some of the charges may still raise red flags, many appear to involve serious criminal conduct, such as child abuse and terrorism, that Durov should have been aware of. But many questions remain unanswered, including how concerned other tech executives should be.
Crime occurs on many platforms. Why does Telegram stand out?
Telegram is a messaging application founded in 2013 by brothers Pavel Durov and Nikolai Durov. While it’s sometimes described as an “encrypted chat app,” it’s most popular on semi-public messaging services like Discord, especially in countries like Russia, Ukraine, Iran, and India.
It’s a massive platform used by millions of innocent people every day, but it also has a reputation for being a safe haven for all kinds of criminals, from scammers to terrorists.
Pavel Durov cultivated a brash pro-privacy image in public. In an interview with Tucker Carlson this year, Durov cited multiple instances of Telegram refusing to hand over data to governments: for example, when Russia requested information about protesters, and when U.S. lawmakers asked for When data on participants in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots emerged. Previously, in 2015, a TechCrunch At the event, Durov said Telegram’s commitment to privacy “is more important than our fear of bad things like terrorism happening.”
This view is not entirely inconsistent with the view of many encryption proponents, since strong encryption must protect all users. A “backdoor” targeting a criminal party compromises everyone’s privacy. In apps like Signal or iMessage that use end-to-end encryption, no one can read the content of the message except the sender and recipient. But as experts point out, Telegram doesn’t accomplish this in any meaningful way. End-to-end encryption must be manually enabled for one-to-one messaging, and it does not apply to group chats or public channels where illegal activity occurs in plain sight.
John Scott-Railton, senior researcher at Citizen Lab, said: “Telegram looks more like a social network without end-to-end encryption.” edge. “Because of this, Telegram may moderate or have access to this content, or be forced to do so.”
The ecosystem of extremist activity on the platform is so well-known that it even has a nickname: “Terror Map.” Most of this happens publicly and Telegram can identify or delete it.
Telegram occasionally takes action against illegal content. The platform blocked extremist channels after media reports and revealed users’ IP addresses following government requests. An official Telegram channel called “Stop Child Abuse” claimed that the platform blocked more than 1,000 channels per day for engaging in child abuse. . Response to user reports.
But there have been many reports of lax regulation Telegram’s overall approach is often described as “hands-off,” compared to rivals like Facebook (which is still struggling to effectively manage its massive platform). Even if Telegram does take action, reporters have previously found that the service may simply hide offending channels rather than block them.
All of this puts Telegram in a unique position. It does not take a significantly active role in preventing criminals from using its platform, as most large public social networks do. But it also doesn’t deny its role as a moderator, as a truly private platform would. “Because Telegram did have that access, it made Durov a target of government concern, but that wouldn’t be the case if it was indeed an encrypted messenger,” Scott-Railton said.
Why was Pavel Durov arrested? Why are other tech executives upset?
According to a statement from French prosecutor Laure Beccuau, Durov is being questioned as part of an investigation into Telegram-related crimes launched on July 8.
The charges listed include “conspiracy” to commit crimes ranging from possessing and distributing child sexual abuse material to selling narcotics and money laundering. Durov is also under investigation for refusing to comply with law enforcement “interception” requests and for importing and delivering encryption tools without declaring them. (While encrypted messages are legal in France, anyone importing the technology must register with the government.) He was also charged with “criminal association for criminal purposes,” which carries a penalty of up to several years in prison. Durov’s detention may last 96 hours until Wednesday, August 28, the statement added.
However, these details were unclear when Durov was first detained, and prominent tech executives immediately rallied to his defense. X owner Elon Musk posted “#FreePavel,” referencing the “dangerous moment” of Durov’s detention in the post’s title, viewing it as an attack on free speech. Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski said on Sunday that he had “just left Europe safely” and that Durov’s arrest “crossed a red line.” Welcome YouTube alternative.
Durov’s arrest comes amid fierce debate over whether the European Commission has the power to hold tech platforms accountable for the behavior of their users. The Digital Services Act, which came into effect last year, triggered investigations into how technology companies deal with terrorism and disinformation. Musk has recently been feuding with EU Commissioner Thierry Breton over what Breton called a “reckless failure to moderate X.”
Public reaction was strong over the weekend, with French President Emmanuel Macron issuing a statement saying the arrests were part of an ongoing investigation and “by no means a political decision”. Telegram, meanwhile, insists it has “nothing to hide” and complies with EU law. “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owners are responsible for abuse of that platform,” the company’s statement said.
Is the panic surrounding Durov’s arrest justified?
It should be noted that the situation is still evolving, and freedom of speech does not seem to be the core issue – Durov’s so-called criminal consciousness is.
Florence G’sell, a law professor at the University of Lorraine, noted in a post on X that the most serious charges against Durov were accusations of direct criminal conspiracy and refusal to cooperate with police. In comparison, the accusations regarding the announced importation of encryption technology appear to be minor crimes. (It’s worth noting that in the United States, certain import and export controls on encryption have been found to violate the First Amendment.) G’sell noted that it remains unclear under which criminal laws Durov might be charged, but the key question It appears that technology was intentionally provided to criminals.
It’s fair to say that Telegram has long operated on a knife’s edge, attracting privacy-conscious users (including drug dealers, terrorists, and child abusers) without enforcing the kind of strong, broad-based protections that indiscriminately protect every user and the platform itself. encryption technology. If child abuse or terrorism is clearly occurring, platforms have a clear legal responsibility to moderate this content.
This is true both in the United States and Europe. Daphne Keller, director of platform governance at the Stanford Internet Policy Center, called Durov’s arrest “unsurprising” in an X post and said it could happen under the U.S. legal system. Failure to remove child abuse material or terrorist content “could expose platforms to liability in most legal systems, including ours,” she wrote. Section 230 provides broad protections for tech platforms, but notably it does not shield operators from federal criminal charges.
Still, there are many unknowns surrounding Durov’s arrest, and there may be further developments that justify some concerns about the impact of crypto. References here to lawful “interception,” a term that generally refers to platforms that facilitate surveillance of users’ communications, are particularly concerning.
In recent years, European and American police have increasingly targeted encrypted chat platforms used by criminals, hacking into a platform called EncroChat and even secretly running an encrypted phone company called Anom. It is worth noting that these platforms focus on providing services to criminals. Telegram, on the other hand, is aimed at the general public. Durov claimed in an interview with Carlson that the FBI, which played a key role in Operation Anom, once tried to convince Telegram to add a surveillance backdoor.
“Whatever you think about the quality of Telegram’s encryption, this case clearly illustrates how many people care about the ability to communicate with each other securely and privately,” Scott-Railton said.
Durov’s arrest also raises questions about what should hold platforms legally accountable. Serious crimes certainly occur on Facebook and nearly every other large social network, and in at least some cases someone at the company is warned but fails to take action. It’s possible that Durov was clearly directly involved in a criminal conspiracy – but beyond that, how ineffective would a company’s modest measures become before its CEO is detained the next time it sets foot on European soil?
