Telegram founder’s arrest: What are the implications and what comes next?

By Rabia Ali

ISTANBUL (AA) – The arrest of Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram, has sent shockwaves across the tech community, sparking debates about free speech in the digital world and concerns over the future of tech giants.

Durov, 39, was arrested Saturday evening by French authorities after arriving at Paris-Le Bourget Airport on a private jet from Azerbaijan, and remains in custody for questioning.

The billionaire, who was born in Russia and is also a citizen of France, UAE and the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis, is facing charges over Telegram’s role in facilitating the spread of illegal content and its alleged connection to illicit activities.

Telegram said in a statement after his arrest that 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,” the company added.

- What is Telegram?

Telegram, founded by Durov and his brother Nikolai, was launched in August 2013, and positioned as an alternative to Meta’s WhatsApp.

It gives users an array of options, ranging from one-on-one conversations to group chats and “channels” for mass messaging subscribers.

Telegram group chats can have up to 200,000 members, exponentially greater than WhatsApp’s maximum of 1,024, while channels can have an unlimited number of subscribers.

According to Telegram, the app is among the top five most downloaded in the globe and has over 950 million monthly active users.

“Telegram started as a messaging app, similar to WhatsApp, but it has soon become an open platform like many others,” said Alessandro Accorsi, senior analyst for social media and conflict at the International Crisis Group.

He believes Telegram is popular “because it enforces very low standards of safety and moderation.”

“Users can subscribe to groups that feed them news, images and videos, even if they might be considered illicit or inappropriate on other platforms, from links to illegal streaming websites to graphic content,” he told Anadolu.

Telegram, in the Aug. 25 statement on Durov’s arrest, emphasized that it “abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act” and its content moderation is “within industry standards and constantly improving.”

Accorsi said Telegram’s popularity exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic and it “has since become the platform of choice for conspiracy theorists and channels presenting ‘alternative news.’”

“The platform attracts a mixed bag of users. In the past, it has been used by pro-democracy movements in Hong Kong, Iran and Belarus, while most recently it has been central in mobilizing racist far-right mobs in the United Kingdom,” he added.

- Legal troubles

According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, Durov’s arrest is part of a judicial investigation opened on July 8, 2024, following an inquiry conducted by the cybercrime unit of the National Jurisdiction for Combating Organized Crime (Junalco).

The investigation includes 12 charges related to organized crime, fraud, drug trafficking and child pornography.

Some of the offenses are complicity in web-mastering an online platform to enable an illegal transaction in an organized group; complicity in possessing pornographic images of minors; complicity in distributing, offering or making available pornographic images of minors in an organized group; and complicity in acquiring, transporting, possessing, offering or selling narcotics.

Others are complicity in organized fraud, and criminal association with a view to committing a crime or an offense punishable by five or more years of imprisonment.

Three charges are related to cryptology, including “providing cryptology services aiming to ensure confidentiality without certified declaration.”

The latter are particularly unexpected, according to Harry Halpin, CEO and co-founder of Nym Technologies, a startup building a “decentralized mixnet” with the aim of ending mass surveillance.

“In fact, no one has heard of the requirement of registering cryptography with the French government before,” he told Anadolu.

“Such a requirement is very old-fashioned and will hurt innovation in France.”

- ‘Unprecedented’ arrest

Accorsi said Durov’s arrest is “unprecedented for the ‘market share’ that Telegram has today.”

“It is the first time that the founder of such a large platform has been arrested for offences alleged to have been committed under his watch,” he said.

In the past, he explained, there have been “rare arrests of people connected to websites and apps that were openly designed to provide a safe haven for illegal activities, such as the SilkRoad on the dark web.”

“The owner of 8chan, a platform linked to child pornography, white supremacist terrorist attacks, and QAnon conspiracies, was never arrested although the website was removed from clearnet until it found refuge on a Russian server,” said Accorsi.

“The owner of 8chan, however, is an American citizen and French laws are very different, so it’s hard to compare,” he added.

Accorsi said Durov’s arrest does raise some questions, but asserted that Telegram has refused “to abide to the rules that govern other large platforms.”

He said the Telegram founder calls himself “a libertarian who believes in free speech and has resisted attempts to enforce moderation and safety on its platform.”

“Social media companies have very different standards of moderation and safety, but they are generally bound to comply with certain laws or codes of conduct,” said the Crisis Group expert.

“Unlike these companies, Telegram has resisted the de-platforming of groups listed as terrorist organizations, but also of hate groups such as white supremacists. As such, it has certainly played a role in promoting violence. This discrepancy was central in Telegram’s own marketing.”

Accorsi said that while owners of social media platforms are not liable for content posted by users, they are still bound to comply with laws that regulate illegal and illicit activities.

“They have a clear obligation to take appropriate measures to tackle, or at least limit, the spread of illegal activities on their platforms,” he said.

- Political overtones?

Halpin, a former senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said it was “absurd to hold the founder of an app used for any communication responsible for how people use it, just as you do not hold Elon Musk responsible for all the content on Twitter.”

However, he emphasized that “turning on end-to-end encryption would have likely defended Durov from charges of not complying with content moderation and censorship.”

“As Telegram is a centralized provider that can view all messages and users on the system, they can technically comply with such orders,” he said.

“It was likely Durov’s political choice not to do so that landed him in jail.”

In the US, he explained, the owner of a platform has historically not been held accountable for the content of users.

“This is called ‘intermediary lack of liability’ and is upheld in Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act,” said Halpin.

“But the Democrats are increasingly interested in censorship and repealing Section 230, and the EU has no such protection for platforms in general.”

Claims about France’s political motivations in arresting Durov have been flying thick and fast over the past few days.

Russian media has alleged that it may have been ordered by French President Emmanuel Macron on a request from Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who believes Telegram is crucial for Russian military communications.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said the Telegram founder was “detained clearly on someone’s advice and threatened with severe punishment in an attempt to gain access to encryption codes.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday challenged France to bring forward evidence to prove that the arrest was not “politically motivated.”

Macron, on the other hand, insists that it was “in no way a political decision” but rather part of an ongoing investigation conducted by an independent judiciary.

Halpin also pointed out that “any information gained by France will likely be shared with the US via mutual assistance treaties.”

“Although it is unclear what France is after, it is highly likely there is high interest by the US in Russian and Palestinian messages on Telegram,” he said.

“Often the excuse of protecting children or defending against terrorism is used by states to gain access to private communications.”

Halpin warned that Durov’s arrest has set a dangerous precedent.

“Obviously, it threatens free speech, as many people use Telegram for news, especially in countries under censorship,” he said.

“It shows that governments are now going to try to imprison tech CEOs that don’t comply with their demands for backdoors and censorship. I would assume this is a warning for Elon Musk as well.”