Inside the Bust That Took Down Pavel Durov—and Upended Telegram | EUROtoday

Get real time updates directly on you device, subscribe now.

As Maillochon and different French journalists went on to report, prosecutors had been secretly investigating Durov for months over his and Telegram’s alleged failure to dam criminal activity—which authorities declare included fraud, drug trafficking, little one sexual abuse materials (CSAM), organized crime, and terrorism—on the platform. The French Gendarmerie alone had counted 2,460 circumstances between 2013 and 2024 through which authorized requests made to Telegram had gone unanswered, based on the outlet Libération. Maylis de Roeck, a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s workplace, instructed WIRED that when her staff realized simply what number of investigations throughout completely different departments had been being stymied by Telegram’s lack of response, they determined to challenge an arrest warrant. As they noticed it, Durov’s silence amounted to complicity.

In the instant aftermath of the arrest, nobody from Telegram commented publicly. One of Durov’s shut associates, George Lobushkin—the previous head of PR at VKontakte—instructed WIRED: “I am in shock, and everyone close to Pavel feels the same. Nobody was prepared for this situation.” Lobushkin added that he fearful “a lot” about Telegram’s future if Durov remained in custody.

In the US, one of many first to react to the arrest was Tucker Carlson, the right-wing TV host. In a submit on X, Carlson known as Durov “a living warning to any platform owner who refuses to censor the truth at the behest of governments and intel agencies.” Elon Musk reposted a clip from Carlson’s interview and captioned it “#FreePavel.” Even Edward Snowden, a stern critic of Telegram’s safety claims, expressed alarm. “I am surprised and deeply saddened that Macron has descended to the level of taking hostages as a means for gaining access to private communications,” he wrote on X. Macron, for his half, issued an announcement that France was “deeply committed to freedom of expression,” including of the arrest: “It is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to rule on the matter.”

On the Sunday night after Durov’s arrest, his custody was prolonged to the 96-hour restrict. According to Maillochon’s sources, he slept in a cramped cell, though investigators made the uncommon concession of letting Durov have a contemporary set of garments delivered. Under additional questioning, Durov reportedly claimed he hadn’t been unresponsive to takedown requests from legislation enforcement; police had merely despatched their requests to the unsuitable place. (Durov made an identical declare in 2022 when Brazil’s supreme court docket quickly banned Telegram, primarily saying the court docket’s authorized requests had been misplaced within the mail.) Durov additionally mentioned he had been in contact with French intelligence companies about terrorism circumstances.

On August 28, almost 4 days after his arrest, Durov was formally indicted on six fees. The most critical—complicity within the administration of an internet platform to allow organized crime and illicit transactions—carried a most penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment, in addition to a €500,000 ($521,000) high-quality. With bail set at €5 million ($5.2 million) and swiftly paid, Durov was launched that evening however prohibited from leaving the nation. He was additionally ordered to report back to a police station twice every week.

The case in opposition to Durov, the CEO of an enormous mainstream platform, was unprecedented. And it got here at a second when his professed libertarian beliefs and laissez-faire perspective to content material moderation gave the impression to be ascendant. The small dimension of Durov’s staff had really impressed Musk to fireplace 80 % of Twitter’s employees when he took it over, based on Character Limita ebook by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac. Musk gutted the corporate’s moderation and trust-and-safety groups. If Durov might run a platform with about 60 full-time workers, most of them in Dubai, why not attempt one thing comparable? More just lately, Mark Zuckerberg fired Meta’s fact-checkers within the US and loosened the enforcement of guidelines in opposition to inflammatory content material on the corporate’s platforms. The “recent elections,” Zuckerberg mentioned, had been a “cultural tipping point toward once again prioritizing speech.”

https://www.wired.com/story/pavel-durov-arrest-telegram-content-moderation/