The Telegram CEO is being questioned about sexual abuse images and drugs
The investigation of Durov’s behavior on Telegram after he disbarked his private jet from the airport: the Paris prosecutor’s probe of the cybercrime ecosystem
Telegram did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the investigation but asserted in a statement posted to the company’s news channel on Sunday that Durov has “nothing to hide.”
Durov was arrested at the airport after he disembarked his private jet from the plane he was travelling on.
The investigation began on July 8 and involves wide-ranging charges related to alleged money laundering, violations related to 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.
Jean-Michel Bernigaud, the top police official in France, said on his website that the lack of moderation and cooperation of the platform was at the heart of the case. “Particularly in the fight against child pornography.”
The ecosystem of extremist activity on the platform is so well-known that it even has a nickname: “terrorgram.” In the open, Telegram is able to identify and remove it.
Former Facebook executive Brian Fishman who studies counter-terrorism wrote on Threads that Telegram has ignored law enforcement requests examining terror groups and child pornography for years.
Durov’s arrest comes amid a heated debate over the European Commission’s power to hold tech platforms responsible for their users’ behavior. Last year, the Digital Services Act took effect and has led to investigations into how tech companies handle terrorism. Musk has been recently sparring with EU Commissioner Thierry Breton over what Breton characterizes as a reckless failure to moderate X.
The investigation was initiated by “Section J3” cybercrime prosecutors and has involved collaboration with France’s Centre for the Fight against Cybercrime (C3N) and Anti-Fraud National Office (ONAF), according to the press release. The procedural framework in which Durov was questioned is what the Paris prosecutor wrote about.
The case raises the issue of free speech on one hand and users’ protection on the other, Lavite says. She notes that there is a lot of information about the investigation that is unknown, and a lot of blurry zones.
The Case against Durov: On the Relevance of a Security Backdoor for End-to-End Communications on Telegram, Facebook, and Anom
On Monday, Telegram moved from 18th to 8th place in Apple’s US App Store rankings and seems to have gotten a download boost from the situation. The app was number one in the App Store’s social network category and third in the overall category in France, despite its 4 percent increase in downloads.
Durov’s arrest raises a question as to what should push a platform into legal liability. Serious crimes certainly occur on Facebook and nearly every other massive social network, and in at least some cases, somebody at the company was warned and failed to take action. It’s possible Durov was clearly, directly involved in a criminal conspiracy — but short of that, how ineffectual can a company’s moderation get before its CEO is detained the next time they set foot on European soil?
That sentiment isn’t radically out of step with what many encryption proponents believe, since strong encryption must protect all users. A “backdoor” targeting one guilty party compromises everyone’s privacy. Messages are not read by the sender or recipient in apps like Signal and iMessage, which use end-to-end encryption. But as experts have pointed out, Telegram doesn’t implement this in any meaningful sense. End-to-end encryption can only be enabled manually for one-on-one messages and it can’t be used for public channels where illegal activity occurs in plain view.
European and US police have been cracking down on online chat platforms used by criminals in the past year, hacking one and even running an online phone company called Anom. Those platforms were focused on helping criminals. The general public is the target of Telegram. In his interview with Carlson, Durov claimed that at one point, the FBI — which played a key role in the Anom operation — attempted to convince Telegram to include a surveillance backdoor.
In posts on X, University of Lorraine law professor Florence G’sell noted that the most serious charges against Durov are the ones alleging direct criminal conspiracy and a refusal to cooperate with the police. By contrast, the charges of declaring tech for export seem to be minor offenses. (Notably, in the United States, certain import / export controls on encryption have been found to be violations of the First Amendment.) G’sell noted that there are still unknowns surrounding which criminal codes Durov could be charged under but that the key issue seems to be knowingly providing tech to criminals.
Telegram – A Safe Place for Criminals, Terrorists, and Scam Artists: a Review of the Company’s Terms and Policies
The brothers founded Telegram in order to spread their message. While it’s sometimes portrayed as an “encrypted chat app,” it’s mostly popular as a semi-public communication service like Discord, particularly in countries like Russia, Ukraine, Iran, and India.
It is a huge platform and used by millions of people every day, but it has a reputation for being a safe place for all sorts of criminals, from terrorists to scam artists.
