Telegram’s cofounder Pavel Durov was arrested on Saturday night time after at an airport a number of miles north of Paris, in keeping with French information shops BFMTV and TF1. Each shops report that the billionaire CEO had arrived from Azerbaijan by personal jet, and that he was the topic of a French search warrant over the app’s lack of moderators, and its alleged use in drug trafficking, cash laundering, and the distribution of kid abuse materials.
Up to now, neither French authorities nor Durov have put out statements on the arrest. Nonetheless, Telegram commented on X, previously Twitter, that “Durov has nothing to cover,” whereas Russian officials reportedly condemned the detainment as an assault on free speech. X proprietor Elon Musk additionally posted about moderation and free speech following the stories.
A submit on Telegram’s X account stated the corporate “abides by EU legal guidelines” and its moderation efforts are “inside business requirements.” The submit continued, “It’s absurd to say {that a} platform or its proprietor are answerable for abuse of that platform.”
The corporate added that it’s “awaiting a immediate decision.”
Durov was born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) and is a naturalized citizen of France and the United Arab Emirates. Earlier than Telegram, the tech govt cofounded VKontakte, Russia’s reply to Fb. Durov reportedly bought his stake in VKontakte and left Russia in 2014 over state censorship demands. Telegram is at the moment headquartered in Dubai, and Durov said in April that the app has almost a billion customers.
Durov is 39 years previous and value an estimated $15.5 billion, in keeping with Forbes. In July, the tech govt stated he was a sperm donor, had “over 100 organic youngsters,” and deliberate to “open-source [his] DNA.”
Telegram has reportedly censored content material up to now, together with Hamas channels and “public calls for violence” associated to the attack on the U.S. Capitol. But, governments regularly conflict with Telegram over its stance on content material moderation and privateness, in addition to its use by protestors. Russia attempted to block Telegram after the agency refused to hand over encryption keys in 2018. A yr later, Durov claimed China had launched cyber assaults towards the service to suppress protests in Hong Kong. Cuba blocked the app in 2021 amid protests over the federal government’s response to Covid-19, and two years later, a Spanish courtroom briefly blocked Telegram entry following copyright complaints from native media teams.
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