The founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, was arrested last night (24/8) at Bourges airport, outside Paris.
The 39-year-old billionaire, with dual citizenship (Russian and French), was arrested as an arrest warrant was pending against him from French justice and is expected to be brought to trial today.
The investigation against him concerns various breaches of Telegram, which has a billion users and is particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and republics of the former Soviet Union. It ranks as one of the most important social media platforms after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and Wechat.
Who is Durov?
Durov, Reuters reports, founded Telegram with his brother in 2013. He fled Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on the social networking platform VKontakte, which he sold .
“I’d rather be free than take orders from anybody,” he told American journalist Tucker Carlson in April about his exit from Russia and the search for a home for his company.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, Telegram became 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, heavily used by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his officials, as well as the Russian government.
“A neutral platform”
Russia began blocking Telegram in 2018 after the app refused to comply with a court order to give state security agencies access to its users’ encrypted messages.
Durov, whose fortune is estimated by Forbes at $15.5 billion, said some governments have tried to pressure him, but the app should remain a “neutral platform” and not a “player in geopolitics.”
Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, said after reports of Durov’s detention: “We’re in 2030 in Europe and they’re executing you for liking a meme.”
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