“Civil society has had a complicated relationship with Telegram for years,” said Natalia Kapriva, a lawyer at digital rights group Access Now. “We have defended Telegram against attempts by authoritarian regimes to block the platform and force it to hand over encryption keys, but we have also raised alarms about Telegram’s lack of human rights policies, trusted communication channels, and legal recourse for its users.” Kapriva stressed that French authorities may try to force Durov to hand over Telegram’s encryption keys to decrypt private messages, “which Russia has tried to do in the past.”
The hashtag #FreePavel is spreading online, including via X's CEO, Elon Musk, who has posted about Durov's arrest multiple times. “POV: It's 2030 in Europe and you're being executed for liking a meme,” he wrote Saturday night in response to a post about the Telegram CEO's arrest. “The need to protect freedom of speech has never been more urgent,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who endorsed Donald Trump for president on Friday, wrote on X, describing Telegram as “uncensored” and “encrypted.”
While Telegram is often described as an encrypted messaging app, messages are not end-to-end encrypted by default, and senior executives previously told WIRED that they view the platform as a social network. This is largely due to Channels, a one-to-many broadcast feature that allows unlimited subscribers to view messages.
One of the most attention-grabbing posts on X was from right-wing former Fox News journalist Tucker Carlson, who alluded to the oft-repeated but controversial narrative that Durov left Russia because the government wanted to take over his company. “But ultimately, it wasn’t Putin who arrested him for allowing the public to exercise free speech. It was a Western country,” Carlson wrote in a post that has so far been viewed at least 5.7 million times. Carlson also linked to an hour-long interview he did with Durov earlier this year, one of the first and only interviews the Telegram CEO has given in recent years.
In Durov's absence, Telegram's future seems uncertain to some: “I'm in shock and everyone close to Pavel feels the same way,” says Georgy Lobushkin, former head of PR at VK, a social network Durov co-founded, and who still keeps in regular contact with Durov. “No one was prepared for this situation.” Asked if he was worried about Telegram's future and who might lead the company in Durov's absence, Lobushkin says: “[I] “worry a lot.”
TF1Info, which first reported in France about Durov's arrest, reported that there was “no doubt” that Durov would remain in custody during the investigation. “Pavel Durov will be in pre-trial detention, that's for sure,” an anonymous researcher told reporters.
“Nobody at Telegram was prepared for such a scenario,” said Anton Rozenberg, who worked with Durov from VK’s early days in 2007 before moving to Telegram from 2016 to 2017. Rozenberg anticipated that Durov would have the best legal defense money could buy. “But without him, the messenger could have huge problems with management, all crucial decisions, and even payments,” he added, given Durov’s personal involvement in running the company. Rozenberg saw no obvious replacement for Durov, who makes key decisions about almost everything at Telegram: funding, development strategies, product design, monetization, and content moderation policies.
For now, business as usual can be expected, said Elies Campo, who led Telegram’s growth, operations and partnerships from 2015 to 2021. “Depending on how long this lasts, it’s like a government, right? There’s this structure, there’s this self-momentum.” Campo added that the company’s workforce is small enough — about 60 employees — that its infrastructure won’t be affected.
Campo admits that the challenge would be whether Durov would have to be physically present to pay the bidders, something Rozenberg also indicated.
“As far as I know, Pavel has made the payments,” Campo says. “So what’s going to happen if there are payments to be made to infrastructure providers, or providers in terms of connectivity—and he’s still under arrest?”
