Russia, which took control of Durov’s first company and which prompted him to establish Telegram while being in exile is now expressing concern about his arrest. Media outlets there report on the absurdity of the accusations against him and consider the Telegram case an attack on Russia. The Russian embassy in France “immediately took the necessary steps” to clarify the situation. Russian media outlets in Serbia immediately started spreading propaganda alleging that the arrest of Durov is an attack on freedom of expression and that it is an attempt by the West to completely subjugate people
Author: Ana Anastasovska
Pavel Durov, the Russian-born entrepreneur who founded the messaging platform Telegram, was arrested in France on the 25th of August as part of an investigation by French prosecutors into criminal activity on the app. He was arrested at Bourget airport, about five miles north of the French capital, after landing on a private jet from Azerbaijan.
He has not been charged, however, he was in custody and questioned by the National Anti-Fraud Unit in France, a law enforcement agency that deals with a wide range of financial crimes.
French investigative judges opened an official investigation against Durov on the 28th of August, after he spent four days in custody. The opening of an official investigation in France against him does not imply guilt, nor does it necessarily lead to a trial, but it indicates that the judicial authorities believe there is enough material to continue investigating the case.
Durov was granted bail with the condition that he pay a deposit of five million euros. He is also required to report to the police twice a week and is not allowed to leave France.
Who is Pavel Durov?
Pavel Durov was born in Russia. As a child he moved with his family to northern Italy and returned to Russia in the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Durov rose to fame in Russia in his 20s after founding the social network VKontakte (VK), which catered to the needs of Russian-language users and surpassed Facebook in the territory of the former USSR.
However, after running into trouble with the Kremlin for refusing to hand over users’ personal data to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), he sold his stake in the company and left Russia in 2014, eventually decamping to Dubai, where he said that the government will not interfere in his business.
In 2013, along with Nikolai Durov, Pavel Durov co-founded a new messaging app called Telegram, which quickly gained traction, but proved controversial, with critics condemning an alleged lack of control over extreme content. He defiantly refused to allow message moderation on Telegram, which allows users to post videos, pictures and comments on “channels” that anyone can follow.
This led to a meteoric rise in Telegram’s popularity, so from 100 thousand monthly active users in 2013, in April 2024 the company announced that it had 900 million monthly active users.
Russian propaganda used Durov’s arrest to attack the West
Russia, which took control of Durov’s first company and which prompted him to establish Telegram while being in exile, is now expressing concern about his arrest. Media outlets there report on the absurdity of the accusations against him and consider the Telegram case an attack on Russia. The Russian embassy in France “immediately took the necessary steps” to clarify the situation.
Russian media outlets in Serbia immediately started spreading propaganda alleging that the arrest of Durov is an attack on freedom of expression and that it is an attempt by the West to completely subjugate people. Thus, Sputnik, calling Durov “Russia’s Assange” published an analysis that Durov’s arrest is a piece in the mosaic of the West’s pursuit of absolute control.
The European Union, especially France and Germany, have become the most extreme in implementing a program to completely subjugate the people of Europe and North America to a system based on absolute control. Durov’s arrest is only part of that project, which includes a very aggressive, offensive strategy of stifling freedoms of all kinds, starting with freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of private property and freedom of opinion, Sputnik reports the statement of the director and professor at the Faculty of Media and Communications in Serbia, Stanko Crnobrnja.
Serbian Russia Today analyzes that Durov’s arrest is a mafia extortion tactic, emphasizing that the West has become George Orwell’s totalitarian society. Asking how far Western censorship can go, Russia Today also makes a comparison between Durov and Assange.
Durov’s arrest sparked an online storm which turned him into a folk hero among those concerned about free speech and government censorship, especially since censorship of online content increased globally.
Elon Musk, the owner of X, and Edward Snowden, the American intelligence agent who fled to Russia after leaking classified information were among those who rushed to Durov’s defense. The hashtag #FreePavel spread on X.
American journalist Tucker Carlson also responded.
Pavel Durov left Russia when the government tried to control his social media company, Telegram. But in the end, it wasn’t Putin who arrested him for allowing the public to exercise free speech. It was a western country, a Biden administration ally and enthusiastic NATO member that locked him away. Pavel Durov sits in a French jail tonight, a living warning to any platform owner who refuses to censor the truth at the behest of governments and intel agencies. Darkness is descending fast on the formerly free world, wrote Carlson.
Online hysteria in N. Macedonia
The online hysteria which transpired after the Russian narrative that Durov’s arrest was an attempt by the West to censor and limit freedom of speech did not escape N. Macedonia.
Thus, in posts on the social network Facebook, it is propagated that the West is tightening the noose around all social networks that do not support censorship, while a photo of a post from X is shared, in which it is written that the social network Tik Tok has been eliminated while Telegram, X and Rumble remain on the list.
In Facebook posts in our country, Durov’s arrest is once again, compared to Orwell’s 1984, while Durov himself is equated with Assange.
Telegram is a lonely island of free speech in a censored and monitored digital world. It is that island that pokes the eyes of the services that want to monitor everything and know everything, just like in Orwell’s 1984. Durov is in this decade what Assange was in the last, a fighter for truth, a fighter for freedom of speech, a fighter against censorship, says in one post.
What is the truth behind Durov’s arrest
The messaging platform Telegram, which was founded in 2013, has more than 900 million users and is popular in countries such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, Russia and Ukraine. Telegram’s visibility into what users are saying or doing on the platform has helped people communicate, organize and share news without fearing that someone in the background can see them if they want to stay anonymous. However, it has also made the app a tool favored by terrorist organizations, drug dealers and far-right extremist groups.
French President Emmanuel Macron claims that the procedure with Durov, the owner of Telegram, is not a politically motivated procedure.
It is up to the judiciary, in full independence, to enforce the law. The arrest of the president of Telegram on French soil took place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation. It is in no way a political decision, he wrote on the social network X.
French prosecutors say Durov was detained in connection with a wide-ranging investigation into criminal activity on the platform, launched last month.
Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, said on Monday that an investigation had been opened on the 8th of July “against an unnamed person” on a number of potential charges related to child sexual abuse material, drug trafficking, fraud, money laundering, instigating criminal transactions and refusing to cooperate with law enforcement. The investigation is led by specialists in cybercrime and anti-fraud, writes the New York Times.
This kind of non-cooperation of Telegram with the various state authorities is familiar to us. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Public Prosecutor’s Office found themselves in almost the same situation in 2021 during the “Javna Soba” (Public Room) case. The then Minister of Internal Affairs, Oliver Spasovski, said at a press conference that despite his call and the call from the then Prime Minister that they would take other steps against Telegram if there is no response. The group “Javna Soba” (Public Room) was then deleted, which further complicated the work of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
On the other hand, the European Commission (EC) refused to comment on the arrest of the founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov in France, calling it an “individual case.”
A spokesperson of the European Commission said Durov’s arrest had nothing to do with Telegram’s obligations under the so-called Digital Services Act (DSA). The EU has strengthened controls on big tech companies under the DSA, which came into effect earlier this year. The regulation requires so-called “very large online platforms” (those with more than 45 million monthly users) to follow a series of rules related to data protection and advertising.
“Criminal prosecution is not among the potential sanctions for breaching the DSA,” an EC spokesperson said, adding that “the DSA does not define what is illegal, nor does it establish any criminal offense and therefore cannot be invoked to make arrests.” Only national [or international] laws defining the crime can be used as a basis, reports Vostok.rs
It is unclear whether any of the charges will be brought against Durov. In a statement released by Telegram on Wednesday, the company said it was “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for abuse on that platform.”
In a company statement, Telegram said it “complies with European Union laws, including the Digital Services Act.”
Russia and the United Arab Emirates, where Telegram is based, have requested consular access to Durov. He is a citizen of both countries and also holds a French passport.
