Speculation is today mounting concerning the arrest of the popular encrypted messaging app Telegram head and founder, Pavel Durov, at Le Bourget airport north of Paris on Saturday evening. The arrest has been widely reported in France, although the authorities have yet to issue a full statement.
In the past, the French president. Emmanuel Macron and his team have been enthusiastic users of Telegram, using it to orchestrate their political strategies. But Durov’s arrest on Saturday is now being seen as part of an attempt by the UK and the European Union to curtail the reach and influence of largely unregulated communications platforms such as Telegram and X (formerly Twitter). This theory is born out of sources close to the situation, who believe that Durov will face charges of complicity in drug trafficking, crimes against children, and fraud – all allegedly stemming from a lack of moderation controls on Telegram.
Last week, UK Technology Secretary Peter Kyle met representatives from TikTok, Facebook’s parent company Meta, Google, and Mr Musk’s X (formerly Twitter) “to make clear their responsibility to continue to work with us to stop the spread of hateful misinformation and incitement.” The meeting was held in the wake of recent riots in the UK that the government claims were partly fuelled by the use of social media platforms by far-right agitators.
EU sends a warning to Musk
The European Union has also joined the debate, sending a warning letter to X’s owner, Elon Musk, reminding him of the bloc’s rules against promoting harmful content. The letter, signed by EU digital commissioner Thierry Breton, warned that X is subject to the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a new law regulating illegal content and disinformation on large social media platforms.
On Sunday evening, Musk declared his support for Durov and joined critics of the arrest who accused authorities of cracking down on free speech, tweeting ‘#FreePavel’ on his social media platform, X.
The debate on how far governments should go in trying to suppress information and opinions with which they may not agree is not new. It dates back at least 400 years to the publication of the English poet John Milton’s Areopagitica, which argued that it is not up to governments to decide what people can and can’t read. But today’s governments will discover that policing social media platforms is far more difficult than smashing a few printing presses and burning any books of which they disapprove.
The rapid growth of Telegram communications is a prime example of the way in which these and other platforms are able to grow their global user base outside the influence of national governments. Durov, who is now a citizen of the Caribbean state of Saint Kitts and Nevis, the United Arab Emirates, and France, fled Russia in 2014 after creating Telegram, already in trouble with the Russian authorities over the VKontakte messaging service he founded with his brother. Telegram is widely used in Russia, including by the government, which has already protested against Durov’s arrest. Today, Telegram has roughly 950 million users worldwide, and Forbes estimates Durov’s personal fortune to be around $15 billion.
But whatever the outcome of Durov’s arrest, governments are fighting a losing war in their attempt to police platforms such as Durov’s Telegram and Musk’s X. The technological barriers to launching a new encrypted communications platform such as Telegram are now even lower than when the 39-year old Durov launched the VKontakte messaging service, dubbed the ‘Facebook of Russia,’ when he left university aged only 21.
Even if the EU succeeds in using its Digital Services Act to censor some of today’s messaging platforms, it would have merely cut off one of the Hydra’s many heads and can expect new communications platforms to take their place. The creators of the next generation of messaging platforms may also decide to locate in geographies where the US, the UK, and the EU have no jurisdiction and to keep a far lower profile than Durov, a highly colorful jet-setting figure who claims to have sired 100 children and is fond of posting pictures of his muscular torso.
