Source: AFP
The boss of social networking platform Telegram has been arrested in France, accused of allowing the sharing of illegal content.
The Russian-founded messaging platform has stayed out of the spotlight in the West, but has hundreds of millions of users worldwide and is playing a key role in the Ukraine war.
Liberal tendencies
Pavel Durov, who was arrested after landing his private jet in Paris on Saturday, launched the platform in 2013 with his brother Nikolai.
It claims to have 950 million users — up from 550 million in 2022.
Durov told right-wing US journalist Tucker Carlson in April that users “love the privacy, the freedom” of the platform.
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Telegram has made a very good game of refusing to hand over or sell user data, setting itself apart from the business models of US rivals like Meta or Google.
In Russia and Ukraine, some of its news channels are more popular than traditional media.
However, the platform has long been criticized for its failure to moderate extreme content.
Durov, who has a net worth of $15.5 billion according to Forbes, told the Financial Times in March that he plans to improve moderation mechanisms.
But “unless they cross red lines, I don’t think we should be policing people for the way they express themselves,” he said.
But he also said the company only employs a few dozen people, which experts say may not be enough to provide a properly secure platform.
Russian origin
The 39-year-old made a name for himself in 2006 when he launched the social network VKontakte (VK) shortly after graduating from St. Petersburg State University.
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Millions joined and it quickly became known as the “Facebook of Russia”, with its popularity piqued the interest of the Kremlin.
He said he had to fend off demands from Russian security services to hand over information about opposition groups using VK to organize.
And later he came under enormous pressure to hand over the personal data of pro-EU activists in Ukraine.
These experiences led him to form Telegram and eventually sell his stake in VK in 2014 and leave Russia.
By 2017, it was based in Dubai, keeping at arm’s length from the strictest regulatory regimes in the European Union and the United States.
Durov holds citizenship of the Caribbean island of Saint Kitts and Nevis as well as French citizenship, which he obtained in 2021.
Legal problems
French prosecutors accuse Telegram of failing to moderate content or cooperate with authorities.
They have flagged content that includes fraud, drug trafficking, organized crime, glorification of terrorism and cyberbullying.
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The company has said it cannot be held responsible for what its users do — a defense long used by major tech platforms.
Several countries have tried to block Telegram in the past.
In 2018, Iran accused it of harboring violent opposition groups.
That same year, Russia said it had failed to hand over the encryption keys.
Last year, Brazil briefly banned it for not providing data on neo-Nazi groups, and Spain took action over intellectual property violations.
No earnings yet
Telegram was fully funded by Durov until 2018, when he raised $1.7 billion to launch his own cryptocurrency.
The crypto project collapsed after US regulators refused to approve it, and the company returned most of the investment.
The messaging service began serving ads in 2021, but insisted it would not use users’ personal data for targeting.
A premium subscription system followed in 2022.
Durov told the Financial Times his company was generating hundreds of millions in revenue and hoped to turn a profit soon.
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He also did not rule out going public.
Although he has repeatedly stated that his mission is not to get rich.
“For me everything in my life has been about being free,” he told Carlson, saying Telegram was about allowing others to express their freedom.
Source: AFP
