Following TF1 TV and BFM TV claims cited by unidentified sources, billionaire founder and CEO of the messaging app Telegram Pavel Durov was detained on Saturday night at the Bourget airport south of Paris.
Out of all the main social media platforms, Telegram is the most popular in Russia, Ukraine, and the former Soviet Union. It is listed after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and WeChat. Within the upcoming year, it hopes to reach one billion users. Russian-born Durov founded Telegram, which is headquartered in Dubai.
After defying orders from the authorities to close down opposition communities on his sold social networking company, VK, he departed Russia in 2014.
According to TF1’s website, Durov was on his way in his private plane and was the subject of a French arrest warrant as part of an initial police probe.
According to TF1 and BFM, the police believed that the absence of moderators on Telegram allowed illegal conduct to continue unchecked, and this was the main focus of the inquiry.
Remarks from Telegram were not immediately available after Reuters reached out to them. Both the French police and Interior Ministry remained silent. Telegram has emerged as the primary platform for uncensored, sometimes explicit, and sometimes inaccurate communication from both sides regarding the war and the politics underlying it, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, and his aides now prefer to communicate using the app. It’s also used by the Russian government and Kremlin to spread news. It has developed into one of the few locations where Russians may still get news on the conflict.
TF1 said that Durov was detained at approximately 20:00 (18:00 GMT), having been travelling from Azerbaijan, BrandSpur digital news reports.
Forbes placed Durov’s wealth at $15.5 billion. He claimed that while certain governments have tried to exert pressure on him, the app, which currently has 900 million active users, needed to continue to be a “neutral platform” and not a “player in geopolitics.”
The Russian state news agency TASS was informed by the Russian embassy in France that although Durov’s team had not gotten in touch with them following the arrest, they were taking “immediate” action to provide clarification.
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s envoy to international organizations in Vienna, along with several other Russian lawmakers, promptly charged France with being a dictatorship.
According to Ulyanov via an X handle: “Some naive persons still don’t understand that if they play a more or less visible role in international information space, it is not safe for them to visit countries which move toward much more totalitarian societies.”
On Sunday noon, several Russian bloggers called for demonstrations outside French embassies worldwide.
