{"id":7157,"date":"2024-08-25T15:06:06","date_gmt":"2024-08-25T15:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/25\/telegram-founder-pavel-durov-arrested-in-france-reports-say\/"},"modified":"2024-08-25T15:06:06","modified_gmt":"2024-08-25T15:06:06","slug":"telegram-founder-pavel-durov-arrested-in-france-reports-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/25\/telegram-founder-pavel-durov-arrested-in-france-reports-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Telegram founder Pavel Durov arrested in France, reports say"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Pavel Durov, the billionaire founder of encrypted messaging app Telegram, has been arrested in France, according to local reports.<\/p>\n<p>The 39-year-old tech chief was reportedly detained after his private jet landed at Le Bourget airport on the outskirts of Paris.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sdc-site-outbrain sdc-site-outbrain--AR_6\" aria-hidden=\"true\" data-component-name=\"sdc-site-outbrain\" data-target=\"\" data-widget-mapping=\"\" data-installation-keys=\"\">    <\/div>\n<p>News broadcasters BFMTV and TF1 have quoted unnamed sources as saying the Russian-born entrepreneur &#8211; who became a French citizen in 2021 &#8211; was the subject of a search warrant.<\/p>\n<p>Both outlets suggest the investigation was focused on a lack of moderators on <strong>Telegram<\/strong> and potential criminal activity by users.<\/p>\n<p>Neither French police, the Interior Ministry, nor Telegram have commented on those claims.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ad ad--teads\">        <\/div>\n<p>Telegram is one of the most downloaded apps in the world, with predictions it will achieve close to <strong>one billion users within a year<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It offers end-to-end encryption &#8211; effectively protecting data from being intercepted &#8211; and has a strong focus on privacy.<\/p>\n<p>Telegram is particularly influential in <strong>Russia<\/strong>, <strong>Ukraine<\/strong> and the republics of the former Soviet Union.<\/p>\n<p>This focus makes the app popular with pro-democracy movements and other protesters in countries with strict laws.<\/p>\n<p>It has become a critical source of information on Russia&#8217;s war in Ukraine, and is used heavily by both <strong>Moscow<\/strong> and <strong>Kyiv<\/strong> officials.<\/p>\n<p>It is ranked as one of the major <strong>social media<\/strong> platforms and claims to have more than 950 million monthly active users.<\/p>\n<p>But it has also been used for criminal activity and recently <strong>by far-right activists who sparked riots<\/strong> in the UK over the <strong>Southport stabbings<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It is unclear what Mr Durov was arrested for but BFMTV reported the warrant concerned the app&#8217;s possible use in money laundering, drug trafficking or sharing of child sex abuse content.<\/p>\n<p>The app&#8217;s founder, owner and chief executive left Russia in 2014 after losing control of his previous social media company Vkontakte (VK).<\/p>\n<p>He refused to comply with government demands to shut down opposition groups on the platform and would not hand over data on Ukrainian protesters to security agencies.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile Russia&#8217;s Foreign Ministry said it was taking steps to &#8220;clarify&#8221; whether he had been arrested.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Durov was naturalised as French in August 2021 and is also a citizen of the <strong>United Arab Emirates<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Writing on X, US commentator Tucker Carlson believes Mr Durov has been detained in France because of his refusal to &#8220;censor the truth&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>In an interview with the American TV personality in April, Mr Durov said he was determined to keep Telegram &#8220;neutral&#8221; and &#8220;free from geopolitics&#8221;.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<div>This post appeared first on sky.com<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Pavel Durov, the billionaire founder of encrypted messaging app Telegram, has been arrested in France,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}