French prosecutors provided preliminary information in a press release Monday about the investigation into Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, who was suddenly arrested Saturday at Paris' Le Bourget airport. Durov has not yet been charged with a crime, but officials said he is being held as part of an investigation “against an unnamed person” and could remain in police custody until Wednesday.
The investigation began on July 8 and includes a variety of charges related to alleged money laundering, violations related to the import and export of encryption tools, refusal to cooperate with law enforcement and “complicity” in drug trafficking, possession and distribution of child pornography, and more.
The investigation was launched by cybercrime prosecutors from “Section J3” and involved cooperation with the French Center for Combating Cybercrime (C3N) and the Anti-Fraud National Office (ONAF), the press release said. “It is within this procedural framework that Pavel Durov was questioned by the investigators,” Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau wrote in the statement.
Telegram did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the investigation, but claimed in a statement posted on the company's news channel Sunday that Durov has “nothing to hide.”
“Given the existence of several preliminary investigations in France concerning Telegram in relation to the protection of the rights of minors and in collaboration with other French investigative units – for example in the area of cyberbullying – Durov's arrest does not seem to me to be a very exceptional move,” said Cannelle Lavite, a French lawyer specializing in freedom of expression cases.
Lavite notes that Durov is a French citizen who was arrested on French soil with an arrest warrant issued by French judges. She adds that the list of charges involved in the investigation is “extensive,” a wide net that she says is not entirely surprising in the context of “France’s ambiguous legislative arsenal” intended to strike a balance between content moderation and free speech.
Durov has become a controversial figure for his leadership of Telegram, largely because he has generally resisted calls to moderate the platform’s content. In some ways, this has positioned him as a defender of free speech against government censorship, but it has also made Telegram a haven for hate speech, criminal activity, and abuse. Furthermore, the platform is often billed as a secure means of communication, but much of it is open and accessible by default.
“Telegram is not primarily an encrypted messenger; most people use it almost like a social network and they don’t use any of the features that have end-to-end encryption,” said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab. “The implication is that Telegram has a wide range of capabilities and access to potentially moderate content and respond to legitimate requests. This puts Pavel Durov at the center of all sorts of potential government pressure.”
Additionally, many researchers question whether Telegram's end-to-end encryption is sustainable if users choose to enable it.
French President Emmanuel Macron said in a social media post Monday that “France is deeply committed to freedom of expression and communication… The arrest of the Telegram president on French soil took place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation. It is in no way a political decision.”
However, news of Durov’s arrest has fueled concerns that the move could jeopardize Telegram’s stability and undermine the platform. The case also appears to have implications for long-standing debates around the world over social media moderation, government influence and the use of privacy-preserving end-to-end encryption.
Lavite says the case certainly raises debates about “the balance between the right to encrypted communications and freedom of expression on the one hand, and the protection of users – content moderation – on the other.” But she notes that much information about the investigation is unknown and that “there are still many unknowns.”
By Monday afternoon, Telegram appeared to get a download boost from the situation, jumping from 18th to eighth place in Apple's U.S. App Store app rankings. Global iOS downloads were up 4 percent, and in France the app was number one in the App Store social networking category and number three overall.
