Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Telegram chief executive Pavel Durov has spent the past decade positioning his messaging app as a politically-neutral safe space away from government interference.“In some markets, Telegram is one of the few remaining free platforms where people can express themselves,” Durov said in a rare interview with the Financial Times earlier this year, his first in seven years, boasting of its use by protesters, human rights advocates and refugees.He appeared sanguine, however, over the rise of legislation worldwide targeting the power of tech companies, as well as growing concerns about the spread of harmful content online. “We are confident that we can adapt,” said Durov. “We don’t expect any significant challenges going forward.” That calculation finally backfired spectacularly on Saturday, when the Russian-born entrepreneur, who is now a French-Emirati citizen, was arrested upon touching down at an airport outside Paris. French prosecutors have said the move is part of a wide-ranging investigation that began in July into a failure to moderate alleged criminal activity on the messaging app, including the spread of child sexual abuse content. Durov has yet to be charged but can be held by investigators until Wednesday night. The arrest, the most drastic attempt yet to hold a platform chief accountable for the content, has thrust the fate of the elusive billionaire into the hands of the French judiciary at a time of highly polarised debate over social media’s responsibility for free speech versus online safety. To some, Durov’s arrest has been a long time coming. The platform has achieved rapid growth to 1bn users since being launched in 2013, leading its founder to suggest it was on the path to a lucrative IPO. Yet online safety researchers have long been sounding the alarm that Telegram has become a breeding ground for criminals, hackers, disinformation pushers, conspiracy theorists and extremists fleeing the tighter restrictions on rivals such as Meta’s Facebook and Google’s YouTube. “On Telegram it seems to be actual crimes going on, so it was also mind boggling how much they seemed to get away with this,” said Megan Squire, the deputy director for data analytics at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project.Squire, who monitors more than 500 out of what she describes as around 30,000 extremist groups on Telegram, said the platform had not attracted the attention of lawmakers sooner because it is headquartered in Dubai and self-funded by Durov, who owns a multibillion-dollar crypto fortune. But, she added, the hands-off approach to moderation “finally caught up with them”. Durov was dubbed the “Mark Zuckerberg of Russia” after co-founding its most popular social media network, VKontakte. But he fled the country in 2014 after allegedly refusing to comply with Moscow’s demands for access to certain Ukrainian user data.Speaking to the FT in March, he insisted that child abuse material and public calls for violence were “red lines” for Telegram. But Durov said his experience of oppression in Russia had shaped his unwavering belief in protecting freedom of expression, adding that some “young people in the west take freedoms for granted”. While his French nationality may have played a role in bringing the case into the prosecutor’s jurisdiction, the fact that Telegram is suspected of committing criminal offences on French territory is more relevant, according to lawyers in France.French prosecutors and law enforcement have also developed a particular level of expertise in investigating cyber criminality led by a specialised unit within the Paris prosecutor’s office, known as the “J3”.French police specialised in cybercrime also played a key role in the investigation that cracked EncroChat, a communications system used by organised criminals, leading to hundreds of arrests and millions of euros in seizures across Europe in 2020.One of the charges French prosecutors are pursuing in their investigation into Telegram is the refusal to co-operate with authorities and hand over information and documents “necessary for carrying out and operating interceptions allowed by law”. Last year Telegram was temporarily banned in Brazil for allegedly not responding to government requests for data related to neo-Nazi activity. Sam Woolley, a professor and disinformation expert at the University of Pittsburgh, said that there had been a “deep-seated mistrust” of Telegram in France since it was used for co-ordination by the terrorists who carried out the 2015 Paris attacks.“Durov has again and again has flouted specific [government] requests . . . as well as ongoing concerns about terrorism,” said Woolley. “You haven’t seen the same wilful disobedience from firms like Meta.”The 39-year old is being hailed a free speech hero by libertarians such as entrepreneur Elon Musk, who has been agitating publicly against any government attempt to more tightly police speech. The hashtag #freepavel has gained traction on Musk’s X social network. In Silicon Valley, some are accusing France of over-reach that could hamper innovation, and others expect sweeping repercussions for some social media operations. “If I’m Elon, I’m paying close attention,” Katie Harbath, global affairs officer at Duco Experts and a former Meta policy director. Durov has sought to distance himself from his native Russia in recent years, saying speculation that he might remain beholden to the Kremlin given Telegram’s prolific use by Moscow leaders are “conspiracy theories”. When asked for his position on President Vladimir Putin or the Russia-Ukraine conflict however, he said “Let’s not go there”. Moscow lawmakers have labelled the arrest politically motivated, a claim denied by French President Emmanuel Macron. Before Durov’s arrest, he flew in from Baku in Azerbaijan, where the Russian president Vladimir Putin had been at the time. Moscow says the pair did not meet. Telegram has said the entrepreneur has “nothing to hide.”“He refused to choose the authoritarian government of Russia. But he also tried to defy moderation and not to give data to any [democratic] governments,” said Aleksandra Urman, a researcher at the University of Zurich who has studied extremism on the platform. “He tries to go in between. It seems like you really can’t not take a stance.”Child safety experts have responded to Durov’s arrest by calling for more government action on online safety globally. “The only question now is why the US Department of Justice [is] not engaged?” said Benjamin Bull, general counsel of US-based National Center on Sexual Exploitation. This growing focus “will be a test for companies around how much they want to resist the institutions that want them to take down content,” said Sriram Krishnan, an investor at Andreessen Horowitz. “If you’re a mid level exec at a company and you could be arrested anytime you get off a flight, it will set off a chilling tone.”
