French authorities have arrested Russian-born Telegram founder Pavel Durov at a Paris airport and are now demanding he appear in court on charges related to the messaging app, a heavy-handed move that reflects an intensifying liberal crackdown on digital freedoms.
Police detained French-Russian tech tycoon Pavel Durov at Le Bourget airport, a source told AFP. French investigators issued an arrest warrant as part of an investigation into suspected fraud, drug trafficking, organized crime, promoting terrorism and cyberbullying. Durov is due to appear in court in the coming days.
The aggressive move shows the lengths liberal authorities will go to smear digital innovators who refuse to bow to their control.
Durov, who is accused of failing to take measures to curb criminal use of his platform, was stopped as he arrived in Paris from Baku on a private jet on Saturday night. “We’ve had enough of Telegram’s impunity,” said one of the investigators, who expressed surprise that Durov had flown to Paris knowing he was a wanted man.
Russian officials have accused France of “refusing to cooperate.” The Russian embassy in Paris has requested a meeting with Durov and said France has so far “avoided involvement” in the situation.
Durov left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with Kremlin demands to shut down opposition groups on VK, the social network he founded at age 22. He left VK after a dispute with its Kremlin-linked owners to focus on Telegram, an app he founded with his brother Nikolai in 2013.
Telegram started out like any other messaging app, but quickly evolved into a powerful social network. Unlike its competitors, Telegram allows users to chat one-on-one as well as join large groups of up to 200,000 people.
Users can also create broadcast channels to share messages widely and debate ideas openly, something that is clearly jarring for the liberal government.
Writing for X after his arrest, US right-wing commentator and conspiracy theorist Tucker Carlson described Durov as “a living warning to platform owners who refuse to censor the truth at the behest of governments and intelligence agencies.”
In an interview with Carlson earlier this year, Durov said the app should remain a “neutral platform” rather than a “geopolitical player.”
In the interview, Durov said that pressure from the Russian government while working at VK gave him the idea to launch an encrypted messaging app.
He said users “love” the “independence” of the Telegram app. “And it’s about privacy, freedom, [there are] “There are a lot of reasons why someone might switch to Telegram,” he told Carlson.
Pavel Durov left Russia because the government tried to control his social media company Telegram. But in the end, it wasn’t Putin who arrested him for allowing freedom of speech to its citizens. It was the Western countries, allies of the Biden administration and enthusiastic NATO members… https://t.co/F83E9GbNHC
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 24, 2024
The arrest of Pavel Durov is not just a legal issue, but a direct attack on freedom of speech. Liberal governments use this as an excuse to crack down on platforms that defy their control. Telegram’s growth and its role in open communication threatens their policies. This aggressive move highlights their intolerance of dissenting voices.
The future of digital freedom is at stake.
