The arrest of a tech CEO has reignited fierce global debates about the limits of digital freedom of speech, and how much responsibility social media companies should bear over the content on their platforms.
On August 24, Pavel Durov, CEO of the messaging app Telegram, was arrested at a Paris airport as part of a larger investigation by French authorities into criminal activity on the platform. In a press release, a French prosecutor wrote that Telegram had refused to cooperate with authorities in their efforts to stop the spread of child porn, drugs, and money laundering on the platform. (French President Emmanuel Macron denied that the arrest was politically motivated.)
But the arrest also sparked backlash from some users, who decried what they considered to be governmental overreach and censorship. Edward Snowden called the arrest an “assault on the basic human rights of speech and association.”
Here’s what to know about Telegram, and the implications of Durov’s arrest.
Telegram’s emphasis on freedom of speech
Durov, 39, was born in Russia and founded Telegram in 2013. The project stemmed from his deep anti-regulation bent and belief that people in countries with oppressive governments needed an encrypted messaging system to communicate with each other. Durov’s comments drew the ire of the Russian government, and he fled the country in 2014.
Telegram allows users to chat privately and in groups, or to subscribe to public channels that disseminate information. Durov positioned Telegram as a haven for free and secure speech. While experts have since questioned how secure most conversations on the platform are, Telegram now has more than 900 million users across the world. In some places, the app has fueled protest movements against authoritarian regimes, including in Iran and Hong Kong. The app has also made Durov, who now lives in Dubai, a billionaire.
But with its lack of moderation, Telegram has also allowed far-right extremists, including ISIS and the Proud Boys, to communicate and recruit, as it has allowed the groups to protect their anonymity and evade law enforcement in a way that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube has not. Durov actually embraced this type of usership: “I think that privacy, ultimately, and our right for privacy, is more important than our fear of bad things happening, like terrorism,” he said at a 2015 TechCrunch event, adding that he “shouldn’t feel guilty” about ISIS using Telegram. (A few months later, though, Telegram announced it had blocked dozens of ISIS-related channels.)
In the decade since, hate groups have flourished on Telegram. The British advocacy group Hope not Hate wrote in 2021 that Telegram was home to “the most extreme, genocidal and directly violent antisemitic content.” In 2023, Brazil temporarily banned the platform during investigations into neo-Nazi groups allegedly using the app to conduct school attacks. Law enforcement officials say that American far-right extremists have recently been using Telegram to plan attacks on local power infrastructure.
And because Telegram has no explicit policies against the sharing of child sexual abuse videos in private messages, sellers of such videos have found a home on the platform, according to researchers. The Stanford Internet Observatory stated that Telegram failed “to perform even basic content enforcement on public channels,” thus allowing child porn to spread.
Backlash from First Amendment defenders
For several years, the European Union—which has some of the strictest content policies in the world—has been trying to wrangle Telegram and its large European user base into cooperation with its rules. In 2022, the EU adopted the Digital Services Act, forcing Telegram to comply with its transparency and moderation standards, including taking proactive steps to police harmful and illegal content
Ultimately, it was the French government which decided to move against Durov, arresting him and accusing him of complicity in a range of criminal acts. Telegram responded in a statement by asserting that the company abides by EU laws and that Durov “has nothing to hide.” A spokesperson for the European Commission told Euronews that Durov’s arrest did not relate to any sort of breach of the Digital Services Act.
Despite the gravity of these charges—and the documented amount of illegal material shared on Telegram—Durov’s arrest sparked fierce outrage from many on social media, particularly from libertarian-leaning figures who accused the French government of trying to pry into private conversations.
Elon Musk wrote “#FreePavel” on X, and warned that the arrest could start a slippery slope leading to “being executed for liking a meme.” Vitalik Buterin, the founder of the blockchain Ethereum, wrote that “This looks very bad and worrying for the future of software and comms freedom in Europe.” Many others on social media worried that the arrest would embolden governments to prosecute tech CEOs for failing to turn over user data—or that it would lead to a “chilling effect” in which platforms over-moderate content for fear of being criminally charged.
“Holding platforms liable for user speech incentivizes them to err on the side of caution by removing any content that could conceivably lead to legal trouble, even if it’s lawful,” Aaron Terr, the director of public advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), wrote to TIME in an email. “That chilling effect is why the United States has constitutional and statutory protections that ensure platforms can host a wide range of ideas without facing crippling legal consequences.”
Durov’s arrest also sparked alarm in Russia, where half of the country’s citizens use Telegram to obtain information or communicate with others, according to a recent poll. The Russian military uses Telegram to coordinate actions and share documents. And a 2023 WIRED investigation raised the possibility that the Kremlin was using Telegram to spy on dissidents. After Durov’s arrest, Russian media sources voiced concern that the app might “become a tool of NATO,” and called for the creation of an alternative military messaging system.
Read More: How Telegram Became the Digital Battlefield in the Russia-Ukraine War
The strange confluence of these different groups expressing support for Durov did not go unnoticed by experts. “I do think it’s interesting that the outrage comes from adversarial quarters,” says Elina Treyger, a senior political scientist at the Rand Corporation. “It’s both the Kremlin and its opponents that are troubled by it, plus the free speech absolutists: This is not a coalition you see often.”
But other free speech champions argued that it would be wrong to extrapolate too much from Durov’s arrest. Daphne Keller, an expert on platform regulation at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, noted on LinkedIn that while she typically criticizes lawmakers for overregulation, Durov’s case seemed at first glance like a simple matter of him breaking the law. “CSAM [child sexual abuse material], terrorist content, and drug sales are all regulated by federal criminal law,” she wrote. “Platforms have no immunity from that law.”
Durov is expected to remain in custody until at least Wednesday for questioning. At that point, the French courts have to decide whether to formally indict him for the charges.
