🔒 Telegram under fire for extremist content and CEO arrest

Russian-born billionaire Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, was arrested at Le Bourget airport near Paris. French police cited an arrest warrant and concerns over Telegram’s moderation policies. Moscow criticized the arrest, calling Durov a political prisoner. Elon Musk also criticized Europe’s approach to free speech.

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By Ingrid Melander and Guy Faulconbridge

Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire founder and owner of the Telegram messaging app, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris shortly after landing on a private jet late on Saturday and placed in custody, three sources told Reuters. ___STEADY_PAYWALL___

The arrest of the 39-year-old technology billionaire prompted on Sunday a warning from Moscow to Paris that he should be accorded his rights and criticism from X owner Elon Musk who said that free speech in Europe was under attack.

There was no official confirmation from France of the arrest, but two French police sources and one Russian source who spoke on condition of anonymity said that Durov was arrested shortly after arriving at Le Bourget airport on a private jet from Azerbaijan.

One of the two French police sources said that ahead of the jet’s arrival, police had spotted he was on the passenger list and moved to arrest him because he was the subject of an arrest warrant in France.

“Telegram abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act — its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving,” Telegram said in a statement on the arrest.

“Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe,” it said. “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.”

Durov, who has dual French and United Arab Emirates citizenship, was arrested as part of a preliminary police investigation into allegedly allowing a wide range of crimes due to a lack of moderators on Telegram and a lack of cooperation with police, a third French police source said.

A cybersecurity gendarmerie unit and France’s national anti-fraud police unit are leading the investigation, that source said, adding that the investigative judge was specialised in organised crime.

“We’re awaiting a prompt resolution of this situation. Telegram is with you all,” Telegram said.

The French Interior Ministry, police and Paris prosecutor’s office had no comment.

Russian lawmaker Maria Butina, who spent 15 months in U.S. prison for acting as an unregistered Russian agent, said Durov “is a political prisoner – a victim of a witch-hunt by the West.” Durov’s arrest led news bulletins in Russia.

Telegram, based in Dubai, was founded by Durov, who left Russia in 2014 after he refused to comply with demands to shut down opposition communities on his VK social media platform, which he has sold.

The encrypted application, with close to 1 billion users, is particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the former Soviet Union. It is ranked as one of the major social media platforms after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and WeChat.

TELEGRAM’S ORIGIN AND INFLUENCE

Durov, who is estimated by Forbes to have a fortune of $15.5 billion, said in April some governments had sought to pressure him, but the app should remain a neutral platform and not a “player in geopolitics”.

Durov came up with the idea for an encrypted messaging app while facing pressure in Russia. His younger brother, Nikolai, designed the encryption.

“I would rather be free than to take orders from anyone,” Durov said in April about his exit from Russia and search for a home for his company, which included stints in Berlin, London, Singapore and San Francisco.

After Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Telegram has become the main source of unfiltered – and sometimes graphic and misleading – content from both sides about the war and the politics surrounding the conflict.

The platform has become what some analysts call “a virtual battlefield” for the war, used heavily by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his officials, as well as the Russian government.

Russia’s foreign ministry said it had sent a note to Paris demanding access to Durov, although it said that he had French citizenship.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that Durov had misjudged by fleeing Russia and thinking that he would never have to cooperate with the security services abroad.

Medvedev, who regularly uses Telegram to criticise and insult the West, said Durov wanted to be a “brilliant ‘man of the world’ who lives wonderfully without a Motherland.”

“He miscalculated,” Medvedev said. “For all our common enemies now, he is Russian – and therefore unpredictable and dangerous.”

Russia began blocking Telegram in 2018 after the app refused to comply with a court order granting state security services access to its users’ encrypted messages.

The action interrupted many third-party services, but had little effect on the availability of Telegram there. The ban order, however, sparked mass protests in Moscow and criticism from NGOs.

Read more: Telegram’s role in spreading disinformation frustrates European efforts to combat fake news

PLATFORM UNDER SCRUTINY

Telegram says it “is committed to protecting user privacy and human rights such as freedom of speech and assembly.”

Durov has previously accused U.S. law enforcement agencies such as the FBI of seeking to get a backdoor into the platform. The FBI has not commented on those allegations.

Telegram’s increasing popularity, however, has prompted scrutiny from several countries in Europe, including France, on security and data breach concerns.

Musk, billionaire owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, said after reports of Durov’s detention: “It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme.”

Outside the French embassy in Moscow, a lone protester held a sign reading: “Liberté pour Pavel Durov”.

SOURCE: REUTERS

Bloomberg: How Telegram Became a Magnet for Extremists, Criminals

By Eleanor Thornber and Jeff Stone

Whether it’s spreading conspiracy theories or organizing riots, messaging app Telegram has become a focus of extremist activity online. The service, started in 2013, is one of the most downloaded apps worldwide. Its private chat setting has made Telegram a free space for open discussion in countries with authoritarian regimes. But a relatively light-touch approach to content moderation means it’s now a prime target for governments trying to stop criminal activities and the spread of misinformation that can destabilize societies. On Aug. 24, French authorities arrested chief executive officer Pavel Durov over an alleged failure to take steps to prevent the criminal use of Telegram. There’s been no public explanation for the arrest yet. The company put out a statement that it abides by European laws.

What is Telegram?

It’s a text-based chat service that looks and feels a bit like WhatsApp, with additional features similar to what you find on X or Facebook. Telegram chat is used by hundreds of millions of people across the world as a straightforward, everyday communication tool.

Users can also post stories, create discussion groups or establish what are known as channels. A channel can end up drawing millions of subscribers and become an influential destination for news and information.

New users have to agree not to send spam or scam users, promote violence or post illegal pornographic content. But in practice there is less content moderation in comparison to the big US-based social media networks. Its moderators will generally remove explicit calls to violence.

How private is Telegram?

The extent to which Telegram is encrypted remains murky. While rival messaging services WhatsApp and Signal use end-to-end encryption by default, considered to be among the best ways to safeguard user messages, Telegram does not.

Instead, the site offers end-to-end encryption only to users who start a “secret chat,” thereby rendering messages unreadable by Telegram and any would-be snoops. Telegram also relies on its own proprietary encryption protocols, meaning that, unlike Signal, security experts can’t test and verify that the company does what it claims.

Why is Telegram such a potent tool for extremists?

Content on Telegram isn’t pushed to users based on their engagement history in the same way it is on other platforms like X, TikTok or Facebook.

But hate speech and disinformation can still go viral on Telegram. One reason for this is that users can cross-post their content from one channel into others. Users who follow a channel for supporters of US presidential candidate Donald Trump, for instance, can be targeted by conspiracy theorists posting links to their own channels with more aggressive political content.

If the users follow those links, they can find themselves engaging with more radical users sharing more extreme narratives.

What was Telegram’s role in the UK riots?

Telegram was used to foment and coordinate anti-immigrant riots in the UK in early August.

Following the murder of three young girls in Southport, northern England, on July 29, Telegram channels were used by extremists to stir hatred against Muslims, distribute locations and targets for actions and disseminate practical advice for would-be rioters, according to a study by London-based anti-extremism think tank the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

It reviewed 16 prominent Telegram channels and groups “actively posting, hosting, and forwarding anti-Muslim and anti-migrant content related to the riots.” Six channels created in direct response to the rioting were removed from the platform on August 5 and 6, it found.

Asked about the app’s role in the UK riots, a Telegram spokesperson said its moderators were “actively monitoring the situation and are removing channels and posts containing calls to violence.” The monitoring includes direct oversight of public parts of the platform, the use of AI tools and user reports, the spokesperson said.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer responded with a pledge to crack down on social media platforms that helped to inflame the unrest.

Why are governments so concerned about Telegram?

It’s proving very difficult to track extremists who join the platform and send false or inflammatory information directly to individuals or in chat rooms and channels.

Law enforcement agencies have more leverage to persuade Facebook and WhatsApp owner Meta Platforms Inc. to help them identify users engaged in illegal activities as it’s a publicly listed company headquartered in the US. They’ve proven to be largely powerless when it comes to Telegram, which is based in Dubai.

Pro-Russian accounts have been especially active on Telegram in spreading disinformation aimed at undermining support for Ukraine. Russian intelligence officers have used it to recruit petty criminals to carry out acts of sabotage across European capitals. Telegram is also used by many Ukrainians, including President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

What are the origins of Telegram?

Telegram was created by Durov, a Russian entrepreneur, and his brother Nikolai, a programmer and mathematician. They made their fortune from creating the Russia-based social network VKontakte in 2006. That platform quickly became popular among Russians, making it a target for a billionaire with ties to the Kremlin. Pavel fled the country and sold his stake in VKontakte. It was around then that the idea of Telegram was born, with Nikolai developing the platform’s data transfer systems.

Pavel, sometimes nicknamed Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg, continues to live in self-imposed exile. He often makes headlines for his wealth, with a net worth of over $10 billion.

The platform has become inextricably linked with cryptocurrencies and issued its own initial coin offering in 2018, called Telegram Open Network.

How does Telegram make money?

In 2020, Pavel Durov announced plans to monetize the platform after reporting zero revenue since its creation. A subscription-based version, Telegram Premium, went live in 2022. Users could pay a fee for an enhanced Telegram experience, including faster downloads and larger file uploads.

It also introduced a reward system that gives content creators the ability to keep 50% of revenue made from advertising in their channels. Most of the funding for the platform, however, still comes from the founders themselves.

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