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After Durov’s arrest: France’s strange descent into online despotism

August 28, 2024
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Telegram founder Durov once fled Russia because the opposition was being treated badly there. He has been a French citizen since 2021, but the country has not proven to be a safe haven for Durov. He is allegedly facing many years in prison, but investigations are still ongoing.

Not everything about this affair is clear, least of all the question of why Telegram founder Pavel Valeryevich Durov flew to Paris in the first place, where he was arrested at Le Bourget airport on Saturday. He had traveled from the Caucasus on his private jet, and there are also a lot of rumors about this trip in the Russian region. But why did he fly to Paris in the first place? Had he not heard about the machinations of EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, a Macron confidant, who is threatening his "colleague" Elon Musk with semi-private letters and official proceedings? How did Durov come to the conclusion that France, where allegations were rife against him, could be a safe haven for him?

Telegram founder Durow is accused of a lack of cooperation with the French law enforcement agencies, allegedly in cases of drug trafficking, fraud and crimes related to child abuse. Durow has turned his application into the "preferred living room of dealers, drug traffickers and criminals of all kinds," summarizes Le Parisien. The Islamic State (IS) has also used the service extensively. It is "an opaque application that allows all kinds of abuse." The impression is that these are very official matters for the French authorities too. Are French foreign interests also affected?

In fact, the "Office for Combating Violence against Minors" is said to have filed an investigation request against Durow. However, the National Cyber ​​Unit (UNC) of the Gendarmerie has now been entrusted with the investigation. Is the child pornography allegation just a smokescreen to make the investigation less vulnerable? In general, it can be argued that Telegram is far less protected against outside access than WhatsApp, for example. Chats are not normally end-to-end encrypted. The suspicion remains that the aim is more to persuade Durow to intervene in freedom of speech and expression, which would affect the broad mass of users.

This is consistent with reports since 2017 that the alternative new left Twitter Mastodon was literally flooded with child pornography. But there are no known investigations or political pressure against Mastodon, nor against Facebook and Instagram, where there are said to be similar problems.


For Elon Musk, the explanation is simple: Mark Zuckerberg censors posts and gives governments access to user data via a so-called “backdoor”.


Rumble founder flees Europe
Meanwhile, the founder of the Canadian video portal Rumble, Chris Pavlovski, has also hastily left Europe for Canada. On X, Pavlovski wrote on Sunday that Rumble had also already been threatened by France. Now, however, the country's authorities have "crossed a red line" when they arrested the Telegram CEO "because he does not censor speeches."

Rumble will not tolerate such behavior and will "fight for the right to freedom of expression, a universal human right, using all legal means." The video service has also been criticized because, unlike YouTube, it refrains from suppressing politically objectionable videos. It has thus established itself as an alternative video portal. According to Pavlovski, his company is currently fighting "in the courts in France." They are also hoping for the "immediate release of Pavel Durov."

In November 2022, the French government is said to have asked Rumble to block Russian sources. Pavlovski is on the same page as not only Durov, but also Elon Musk. Together with them, he wants to uphold freedom of expression as a "pillar" of their own culture. On X (formerly Twitter), a list has been updated that previously only excluded TikTok, a service that has since been suppressed in the USA. Now Telegram too. X and Rumble are number three and four on the list of liberal portals.

Robert F. Kennedy, who has just withdrawn his own candidacy and spoken out in favor of the election of Donald Trump, spoke out from the US election campaign: "The need to protect free speech has never been more urgent."


With the pandemic, angry emojis grew
Durow, who founded Telegram in 2013 with his brother Nikolai, has always made it a point not to cooperate with states and governments, in contrast to other platforms such as Facebook or the old Twitter (before Musk). But Telegram has also blocked individual channels in its history - due to external pressure - such as those related to IS or the storming of the Capitol in January 2021. "Terrorist content, fraud, illegal pornography or the promotion of violence" are against Telegram's rules of use and can therefore be removed.

In a recent statement by the company Telegram on its own portal, it says: "Telegram complies with EU laws, including the Digital Services Regulation (DSA). Its moderation is in line with industry standards and is constantly improving." Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and "he travels to Europe frequently." It is absurd to hold a platform or its owner responsible for "abuse on this platform."

The antipathy of Western governments towards Telegram is not entirely new. While the platform was previously valued as a space for the Russian or Belarusian opposition, people were less pleased when the power to deviate also became apparent in the West. During the Corona period, Telegram grew strongly - and with it allegedly the "hate" on the platform. There are evaluations of this that should not really be taken seriously. For example, a sharp increase in "hate emojis" has been measured since the start of the vaccination campaign. This should not be surprising if more and more users disagreed with what the widespread propaganda for government measures and the concrete pressure to get vaccinated had suggested at the time.

Hint from near the Kremlin: You are not one of them
In Russia, Telegram is still one of the largest providers, with channels with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Kremlin spokeswoman Maria Vladimirovna Zakharova said the Russian embassy in Paris "got to work immediately," as is usual in cases where a Russian citizen is detained abroad. In 2018, however, the Kremlin tried to block Telegram and encountered widespread protests from international NGOs. Ultimately, Russia abandoned its attempt. In 2014, the Kremlin had already demanded access to user data from Durov's older platform project VKontakte (German "In Connection"), a Russian version of Facebook. The main concern was the profile of Alexei Navalny, who was organizing the Russian opposition at the time. Durov refused and went to Dubai.

Now former President Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev has mocked him for this in a statement and seems to be calling on him to return to his old homeland:

"Some time ago I asked Durov why he did not want to cooperate with law enforcement agencies in cases of serious crimes. 'It is a matter of principle,' he said. I told him, 'That would cause serious problems in any country.'"

He believed that his biggest problems were in Russia, so he left the country and eventually obtained citizenship or residency in other countries. He wanted to be a brilliant 'citizen of the world' who could live well even without a homeland. 'Ubi bene, ibi patria!' (Where it is good, there is my country!)

He miscalculated. For all our common enemies, he is still a Russian - and therefore unpredictable and dangerous, of different blood. Definitely not a Musk or Zuckerberg (who, by the way, actively cooperates with the FBI). Durov must finally understand that you cannot choose your homeland, just as you cannot choose your time."

Why did Durov fly to Paris?
Although Medvedev is not considered a real power factor in Russia and beyond, his view is characteristic. Russia can make itself comfortable in this situation and point the finger at others who are no more constitutional than it is. Now there is hope that this will prove to be wrong, and indeed, one would not expect Durov to die in French custody. But the new online laws in the EU, which began with the German Network Enforcement Act, are also increasingly depriving EU Europeans of their freedom.

Durov is said to have recently traveled to Baku, where he may even have tried to meet Vladimir Putin, who was on a state visit to Azerbaijan at the same time. However, no meeting took place. Durov's intention was allegedly to ask Putin to allow Telegram to continue to operate freely in Russia. The Russian government has restricted access to American platforms such as YouTube and WhatsApp following the Ukrainian offensive against the Kursk region.

Durov's subsequent flight from Baku to Paris is puzzling in that he knew about the long-standing French arrest warrant. Did Durov want to escape from acute danger or did he underestimate the consequences of the French authorities? And will his French passport, which was only granted in express mode in 2021, now help or harm him? Durov allegedly naturalized under a Frenchified name: Paul du Rove. The 39-year-old Telegram founder also has a passport from St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean and one from the United Arab Emirates.

On August 14, he celebrated Telegram's eleventh birthday in his private "Du Rove's Channel" and recalled a resolution he allegedly made on his eleventh birthday: From then on, Durov wanted to become "smarter, stronger and freer" every day. The same should apply to Telegram, so that technological progress should be combined with increased knowledge and freedom. Now the founder is sitting in a Paris cell, and the figure of 20 years of possible imprisonment is doing the rounds, without it being clear on what basis it is being mentioned.

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