What's behind the arrest in France of Telegram's CEO? | Inside Story

the CEO of telegram paval durov held by French police the Detention of the Russian born billionaire has been condemned by Moscow and Elon Musk so why is he being detained does the case have wider implications for social media this is Inside Story hello and welcome to the show I'm Sammy Zam he's one of the world's richest men making his fortune from social media channels he's invented including telegram which has nearly a billion users but russian-born French citizen paval durov is now under investigation in France arrested after flying in from aeran on a private jet his encrypted Telegram app trades on its secrecy refusing access to State agencies to its databases or user information there's a degree of secrecy so far about the French investigation too but press reports in Paris suggest it's linked to allegations of criminal activity where telegram was used the company denies any wrongdoing while the arrest has been criticized in Moscow and by Elon Musk so why is durov being questioned what are the wider implications of this case we'll be discussing all of this in a moment with our guests but first this report from Wilson dard telegram's founder Pavo durov was arrested at an airport near Paris on Saturday night he was detained on an arrest warrant but French prosecutors and telegram have not commented on why French media Reports say prosecutors are examining allegations the messaging app Telegram has been used to facilitate the tradeit of drugs weapons and the exploitation of children telegram posted on its official Channel saying it was absurd to hold the platform's owner responsible for the abuse committed by the users of that platform durov's native Russia in April urged telegram to crack down on content it described as linked to terrorism after an attack by gunman on a Moscow concert theater in March that killed at least 14 five people but on Monday Russian officials described durov's arrest as an example of Western hypocrisy the arrest of p durov means that there is no freedom of speech that the freedom of speech in Europe is dead Elon Musk is free Mark stukenberg is free but t p durov is now in prison why because he's Russian he is a Russian by nationality and he's Russian by his citizenship so he has been traced as a person to be a scapegoat for the West as an evil Russian durov founded telegram after widespread anti-government protests in Russia in 2011 and he has been living in Exile since Russian authorities demanded he allow them access to the app in 2018 he refused the platform has amassed nearly a billion Global users one of the world's most popular social media platforms Elon Musk who owns X formerly known as Twitter posted a message in suppor of durov in the hours after his arrest using the French word for Liberty regulation of social media is under great scrutiny with lack of moderation blamed for the spread of misinformation and enabling criminal activity durov's case will be watched with interest not least by his competitors Wilson dard Al jazer for Inside Story well let's bring in our guest now in Berlin Ben Aris founder and editorinchief of bne intell news he's been following this story very closely and in Newcastle in the UK Chris stokel Walker a technology and digital culture journalist who also hosts the podcast tectonic for the human rights organization Article 19 the organization looks at freedom of expression online with a focus on the human impact of big Tech and social media warm welcome to both of you if I could start with Ben so let's start first of all Ben with what do we know officially so far we we know he's been detained he hasn't been charged have authorities spoken or announced about what they're questioning him over what he's suspected of very little so far um the French uh police have been quite reticent um they have said that it's he's been detained in connection with a preliminary investigation and um it's been reported that uh he's being investigated by the the Cyber unit of the jeary and they've suggested it's connected to um distribution of pornography and drug trafficking and terrorism however as you said um the charges have not actually been formally announced uh his um detention has just been extended for another 48 hours after which they have to either charge him or let him go um but we're waiting for an announcement today um we're expecting to hear the details of charges and and that will be key because it can be everything from just obstructing justice not cooperating in the investigation through to being linked um complicit or an accessory to the crimes that allegedly going on on Telegram and those charges if it comes to that one then he fa a significant time in jail and very large fine this is quite a significant development is it not Chris do we have any indication about just how solid this move is the case against him might be as as Ben says Sammy we are at a very very early stages of this and from what we understand the details are incredibly sketchy we have had uh earlier today um the the Secretary General of the Offman which is the the office of miners in France talking about how um durov was arrested over over the cause of kind of a lack of moderation and a lack of cooperation um with authorities when they're trying to tackle crimes against children so that would suggest that this is perhaps something to do with uh you know the images that were being shared of potential child abuse and also uh potentially uh you know you can think of things like maybe child trafficking a lot of a lot of the The Lure of telegram I suppose is this option and it is an option one of the main misconceptions of how telegram works is that everything is sent by default through an encrypted process but it's actually something you have to actively turn on but he can do that and if you have an encrypt messaging service then suddenly you can imagine that this might be useful for criminals to try and um coordinate some of their their crimes and also to kind of communicate with one another so it looks like that is the case but but as Ben has has very clearly laid out we're still in the very early stages of this we still don't fully know what exactly durov is alleged to have done and until we find that out I think it's going to be very difficult not just for those of us talking about it but also for durov himself to be able to mount a defense Ben what do you make of the timing of this because telegram has been talking about how its user base is growing how it hopes to be profitable soon there was even talk about maybe heading towards an IPO uh it has to IPO um that uh it tried to raise telegram itself makes no money uh it's been existing on durov himself um who is you could call him the Zuckerberg of Russia in so much as his previous company V the contacted now known as VK is basically the same as Facebook um and he was for out of that he had to sell it several years ago but made a lot of money and he's been funding telegram then he floated a coin called the gram um and was hoping to monitorize it by that um and he has investors and he's been issuing bonds and he's promised to pay the investors back by March of 2026 and in order to do that um the plan is to do an IPO otherwise you know becomes unclear how he's going to continue to to to pay his investors he has to spend something like a 100 Mill do a year on servicing the the bonds that he already has however if he's still in jail um then the IPO becomes problematic um but certainly it's on the cards Chris the possibility of people using apps for criminal activity probably can't be only related to telegram right one imagines a lot of apps could and platforms can be used potentially for criminal activity why is durov and telegram being targeted in this way there are a couple of reasons I think why Sammy you rightly point out that you know telegram is is not the only app that will host uh crimes and the communication of crimes and the organization of crimes through its services I think what makes telegram slightly different than what makes paval durov perhaps an easier Target for French authorities to take what is frankly unprecedented action I think in terms of bringing ex CEO to heal here and alleging uh significant concerns around them is that uh both telegram operates in this kind of very odd gray area where in part because of durov's very outspoken defensive free speech and his his willingness to kind of defend the rights of users against law enforcement requests which telegram makes a great deal of it's it says you know blly that it will try and refuse as many of those requests as possible because it believes in freedom of speech and with that durov uh shares an awful lot of space and beliefs I think with the likes of Elon Musk that makes it a Target because that makes it a place where you are likely to see more criminals and others who are trying to evade detection starting to kind of congregate now doesn't mean that you this is a hot bed of crime many many people use this simply for communicating with friends and family and and telegram has made that very clear that they believe that this this is a case potentially without Merit here but I think hang on Chris we do know just sorry to jump in but we do know of course that have been allegations against other apps that they have been used by potentially criminal activities extreme far right individuals and groups some of whom have been accused of engaging in violence or even convicted of engaging in violence the recent riots in the UK highlighted that issue with allegations that they used Twitter and yet we haven't heard of any attempt to go after the owner or the CEO o of some of those platforms right which gets me onto the point that I was just going to say which is that telegram operates in this kind of odd space where it is a big platform 900 to 950 million users depending on how you're counting and pav durov is a very rich man you know anywhere between 9 and 15 billion dollar net worth by some estimat but he is not in the sort of say Stratosphere as the likes of Elon Musk or the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and likewise alot telegram is a Lifeline for many people good and evil it's also nowhere near as big or as important as many of those larger apps and so I think that there is an element here of pav durov and telegram being kind of a mediumsized fish in a big pond and therefore CH you saying he's basically an easier Target yeah that's exactly what I just said he's an easier Target than anybody else to try and Target here because if you try and bring mark zooker B into handcuffs as he steps off a plane in Paris I imagine that there would be a whole host of lawyers uh coming against uh the French authorities there and also a very very strong media presence to try and defend that whereas pav durov is a degree smaller and I think that is uh playing into the French authori hands here you've been following this case Ben and the the growth of of telegram and its Founders story for a long time listening to what Chris is saying there about him being an easier Target tell us a little bit about what message that's sending in light of the fact that we do have credible allegations by credible organizations like the 2022 report by Amnesty International that pointed the finger at Facebook's algorithms and as it put it Relentless pursuit of profit as contributing to human rights violations in Myanmar and yet we haven't seen the same level of targeting shall we say of others as we're we're seeing what's going on with telegram indeed I think they're targeting Facebook I mean it's such a huge Global Enterprise um that it's a sexy thing to go after and if you're going to make that kind of allegations against social media then you start with the biggest ones but I mean to follow up on the point um that my my colleague was just making I mean what what makes telegram really special in this case is the lack of moderation in in telegram's case it's really extreme I mean durov's whole philosophy is do not interfere at all and you can frame that as a freedom of speech thing and the Russian Deputy you showed before was doing exactly that but he's really adamant um he's quite obsessed with it that he doesn't interfere with what people say or do he won't let anybody into the system to have a look at the messages to the point where he faced off with the fsp in Russia the former kgp the success of KGB who demanded the electronic keys because they too were doing a terrorist investigation and I think it's quite clear because of the encryption because of the secrecy that you can have in sending your messages this is an obvious platform for criminal actors to to use and even in those cases that um telegram has not given uh cooperate with the authorities they've done it on very rare occasions they were pressured by the Americans and did close down some terrorist um chat groups that we're using telegram um and again the same charges come up here that uh one of one of the parts of the investigation has been made clear is the French authorities are investigating um some sort of terrorist Network and again dorov has refused to give them access and under the new digital so hang on Ben listening to that is is he being pursued because the lack of moderation or because he simply refuses to hand over the electronic keys because you know coming back to the example I gave of of the Amnesty International report what they said about Facebook was not simply that there was a lack of moderation they said the way that the algorithms were structured and set up and the The Profit pursuing policies actually played made that meant that Facebook was playing a much more proactive role in the spread of hate speech now surely that is a bigger issue than simply being passive if you're looking at applying Law and Order equally right both are true but it's it's slightly different in the case of Facebook you're posting messages to be read by the general public in the case of telegram these terrorist groups uh criminal groups are having private chat groups private messages and that doesn't go to the public and the point is that they're attracted to telegram because not only do they have that endtoend encryption if they turn the secret messaging function on um but there's also because there's no moderation there's no one looking over your shoulder to see what you're writing about whereas in the case of X and Facebook I mean if you post a video or or picture of violence and the Facebook people will take it down and that's the point is that telegram does not interfere at all with anything that you post and also under the new law that if you are moderating your your chat groups and you suspect them of criminal activity you're obliged to report it to the police uh and again telegram hasn't done that it doesn't report anything I mean it just leaves them alone and that's the attraction of it and that's why it's it's grown so fast um and when I'm talking to friends in Russia the the leading app in Russia is WhatsApp ironically however if they want to talk about business or we're discussing details of a story then they always ask me to switch to telegram there's this trust particularly in Eastern Europe that what you say on telegram won't go any further and can't be spied on whereas the other apps can be on that point though Chris I mean if it's a matter of moderation and there's no one looking over your shoulder I mean there have been cases where the finger has been pointed at Twitter to take another app during the recent writing in the UK where some of the things which Ben was talking about you know the obligation to step in and intervene and and end any activity that's seen as inciting breaking crimes there have been accusations that that hasn't there's been failures there by some of the other apps like Twitter with the former Twitter vice president Europe Bruce daisley calling for an arrest warrant for Elon Musk if he quote continues to stir up unrest right but yet we're not seeing is there not what we're hearing in the social media sphere at least in this part of the world and the the southern hemisphere is there is a perception of double standards here yeah well I think it's I think it's less double standards I think it's more a degree of different I so as as Ben highlighted you know telegram's unique excelling point is essentially that it is uh if not outright marketing itself towards criminals it is providing services and a way of doing things that is at least useful to criminals whereas on uh Twitter you well X now you have a kind of a slightly more uh paired back version of that where you have some moderation although it has become much much worse since Elon must take over and that is in part because of his kind of dogmatic approach to free speech and also in part because of what seems to be his political persuasion and then you have on the other end of things um you know WhatsApp Facebook and and the other platforms that are run by meta which you no one is denying that criminal activity happens on those but it's it's kind of as an adjunct to rather than a reason for that platform existing so some people might say it's double stand really perceived is that is that really the case though Chris when you you look at some of the recent statements by Elon Musk during the rights in the UK and the way that that was interpreted you know the country heading towards Civil War and so on that caused a backlash from the prime minister of the UK yeah but that that's Elon Musk being a professional troll it's it's no uh surprise that Elon Musk has inserted himself into the power do of case not least because he shares a lot of uh things politically and societally in terms of his beliefs Chris interpreted that as as supportive of the idea at least of of allowing continuing to allow a plat platform for the expression of a lot of right-wing opinion that many considered or wondered whether was a violation of of hate speech uh uh laws and crimes yeah and and I personally believe that it is and and that is uh you know Elon musk's world that we choose to live in he is unfortunately brought this up and decided that he is going to take it in that direction notably however it is interesting that X under Elon Musk has actually exceeded to pretty much every government request that's been asked of it to hand over data and we did see with telegram not necessarily handing over data to government but I know certainly I was reporting on some of the the uh groups that were being used to organize the riots in the UK in the last few weeks over the summer and suddenly they started disappearing and we learned later through telegram's press office that they were deciding to actually take action against this so I think you there are degrees of difference here paval durov does recognize that you there are are some things that are potentially be on the pale not least when police are starting to breathe down his neck a little bit but it is interesting here that um yes telegram is I think a degree of difference away from the other slightly more mainstream platforms perhaps that's the best way of thinking of it is mainstream platforms versus Fringe platforms and no one is denying that telegram's near billion users are not significant but I think that if you ask the average person to list a number of messaging services or social media platforms off the top of their head telegram probably comes way down near the bottom listening to what Chris said yeah go ahead Ben yeah I I just want to pick up on the point I mean the in many ways this durov case um is uh could be a test case a landmark case in so much as it's catalyze or better to say crystallized this whole issue about the need for companies to moderate their content and to pay attention to what's going on and you've mentioned the riots in the UK and in this case we've got telegram facilitating drug traffickers and we have this new European digital law but until this point the social media um companies have been left to largely self-regulate themselves and put in their own standards for moderation of what they find acceptable and what they don't someone like musk has got his own biases and so they put some funny rules in there and things like the Ukraine has been downgraded in the search um which is a quot of his but um I think with this a turning point Ben do you think more regulation may be coming more government involvement may be coming I I think it's crystallizing the debate around it I mean here we are having exactly the discussion and that you know one of the options here is that the French could accuse Z off of being an accomplice to these crimes not just like hosting them not just you know failing to um cooperate with a law enforcement uh investigation but actually being an accomplice and if that happens then he goes to jail for a long time and it means that you know I'm sitting here in Germany and if I wrote some tweet praising Hitler which is illegal in Germany then not not only will I get punished but then it makes musk also complicit in that and open to criminal charges so this this could I mean I don't think it's going to go that way but um the point is is that what is the responsibility of the owner of the social media to moderate what are the guidelines you know where are the standards in PR press and TV ABS very well those are very you rais that point because I'm I'm fairly sure Ben you're not going to tweet something supportive of Hitler but beyond that where does the responsibility for how people use an app or a product end Chris I mean telegram says it's completely absurd to hold the owner responsible for how people use a messaging or social media app um yeah I mean same arguments is made by gun manufacturers and others isn't it that they they can't be responsible for the actions of the people who own them I do think that there is a responsibility here and I do think that uh we are at an interesting moment because this is the first time that essentially European Regulators have not just talk to talk but have walked to walk and it is interesting that they have decided to go after an individual a named person rather than a company so Ben mentioned earlier two of the uh large uh European bits of Regulation that are coming through the digital markets Act and the Digital Services act they serve different purposes but essentially the design of them is so that European consumers whether you are buying stuff or you are interacting with other people people are protected in some way from uh you know issues of free speech issues of crime and so on and so forth and I think that what's really interesting about this is that this is um a sort of Step Beyond that this is not just saying we will find you which is what they are able to do under these two bits of legislation but instead this is saying actually we will call your executive your CEO your founder directly responsible for the incidents that have been caused through your platform and that is a significant development because ultimately that then means that you suddenly have not people ending up in jail but it does mean that Mark Zuckerberg Elon Musk and others could in theory be called partly responsible for the actions that are taken through their platform and I think that is what is particularly interesting to me not that this will cause a huge change or that Mark Zuckerberg or or musk will be quaking in their boots right now worrying that they're going to be put into shackles when they land in Europe but I think that it will cause them at the back of their mind to think well maybe I'm too big to be caught in this but perhaps some of my slightly lower down Executives won't be and maybe that will cuse you mention a mo related to that you mentioned a moment ago that interestingly you know some of these apps have actually and Elon Musk has been more Cooperative with authorities request is that a factor do you think here in in how hard authorities go after some of these apps do they look at their degree of cooperation or not do you think think yeah absolutely this is the reason why we are seeing pav durov arrested right now it's not because uh you know just only the degree of issue of what is actually on telegram it's because of the way in which he's flouted it and kind of shown off that he's flouting it it's also why we're seeing Elon Musk being targeted so much by European Regulators by the way and people like tiar Breton who is one of the eu's Commissioners in charge of looking at um how regulation meets the role when it comes to social media platforms picking fights with him as well we got a brief minute here and I want to ask this question to Ben we've seen Russia's been I think fairly critical of what's happened in France so far but of course durov has had his issues with Russian authorities too you think there a bit of international power politics going on here well I think you have to realize or put this in the context of like here's a Russian senior Russian businessman um who's just been accused of drug trafficking and Distributing pornography and it's being thrown in jail and this comes in the context of the prisoner swap that we just had where even gich um was arrested a US reporter and put into jail for a year and um eventually swapped in in August and this this historic prisoner swap and so as far as the Doomer concerned um they're already the Russian politicians are already saying the same thing that the Americans uh who are behind this they're building up a prisoner reserve and they're going to keep our billionaire and then you know look for a swap later on uh again I don't think you know this classic uh conspiracy theories that come pouring out at this point I mean there's also the fact that durov was flying from Baku aan on his way back to St Petersburg and he'd been there to try and see Putin because in Russia telegram is actually being under attack andly the YouTube slowed down to it's basically not working now and then just last week both Telegram and WhatsApp were this Services were disruptive and the belief is or that durov went to Baku to try and see Putin to Lobby him to protect his service so that it wouldn't be shut down but again you know that puts him in proximity of of Putin he's an oligarch in Europe there's been every oligarch is being sanctioned and their assets seized and then suddenly boom you know this Russian Tech the biggest Russian Tech uh billionaire entrepreneur has just been arrested and so from they see that they see this is completely political it's been a really interesting fabulous discussion let's thank our guests very much for it Ben Aris and Chris stok Walker and thank you too for watching you can see the show again anytime by visiting our website Al ja.com for further discussion head over to our Facebook page that's facebook.com/ AJ insid story you can also join the conversation on X our handle there is at AJ inside story from from me Sami Zan and the whole team here for now it's [Music] goodbye make sure to subscribe to our channel to get the latest news from Al jazer