Panvel Durov already had an arrest warrant issued by the French authorities
Russian-French billionaire Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram, was arrested as he landed his private jet at Bourget airport north of Paris, France, on August 24.
Investigated for lack of content moderation, the app is suspected of ignoring the creation of measures capable of preventing its use for money laundering, drug trafficking, sharing of pedophile content, among other crimes. Durov already had an arrest warrant issued by the French authorities.
In a statement released on August 25, Telegram claims that it is “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for the abuse of that platform.”
Telegram has been in the courts’ crosshairs for some time now, including in Brazil. On February 15, 2022, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, WhatsApp, Kwai and LinkedIn signed an agreement with the Superior Electoral Court (TSE) to combat disinformation in that year’s elections. At the time, Telegram was the only network absent.
In 2023, it was the Federal Court of Espírito Santo’s turn to suspend the application for not fully complying with a court order to provide data on participants in groups with neo-Nazi content.
The refusal to provide data linked to alleged criminal profiles led to Telegram being banned in Russia in 2018.
A dual citizen of the United Arab Emirates and France, Durov, who was born in Russia and lives in Dubai, founded Telegram in 2013. The businessman left Russia in 2014 after he failed to comply with orders to close opposition communities on the social media platform VKontakte, which was sold.
Another executioner of Justice is Elon Musk, owner of X, ex-Twitter, who came to Durov’s defense with the hashtag #freepavel.
