French judicial authorities decided to extend Pavel Durov’s initial detention on Sunday, August 25th, after arresting him as he landed in Paris on Saturday night. The billionaire founder of the encrypted messaging app Telegram is accused of allowing criminal abuse of his free speech-oriented social media platform, which his lawyer said was “absolutely ridiculous.”
As we previously reported, Durov was detained at the Paris airport just as he arrived in France from Baku, Azerbaijan. His arrest warrant was issued by the OFMIN, the French office tasked with preventing violence against minors which is conducting a probe against Telegram for failing to curb numerous crimes on the platform, including fraud, drug trafficking, promotion of terrorism, and cyberbullying.
According to sources close to the investigation, Durov’s extended preliminary detention for further questioning can last up to 96 hours. After this period ends, the appointed judge must either set him free or press formal charges against the billionaire to keep him in custody.
Durov’s lawyer, Dmitry Agranovsky, was quick to call out the absurdity of arresting the founder and CEO of Telegram in an investigation into alleged crime by its users. “It’s the same as blaming a car manufacturer, some giant auto concern, for the fact that its cars are used for criminal purposes, or blaming them for an accident,” Agranovsky told the Russian news agency RIA Novosti on Sunday.
Telegram itself also published a statement shortly after Durov’s arrest, saying that the CEO “has nothing to hide” and that the platform’s moderation conforms to international standards, as much as end-to-end encrypted messaging apps can. “Telegram abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act—its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving,” the statement said.
Since its founding in 2013, Telegram has grown to be the world’s foremost social media app for political activism in countries where freedom of speech is not guaranteed. The majority of its nearly one billion active monthly users are based in post-Soviet countries (including Russia and Ukraine), but as the general crackdown on online free speech continues, the app is becoming increasingly popular in Western nations as well.
Lately, Telegram has become the number one source of information—and disinformation—about the war in Ukraine for both sides, but it is also used extensively to disseminate updates and footage of other conflicts, including Israel’s war against the Hamas terror group. In Europe, both the pro-Palestinian radical left and right-wing opposition groups often use the app’s encrypted messaging service to avoid being tracked and persecuted by authorities.
“It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme,” X owner and self-styled ‘free speech absolutist’ Elon Musk commented on Durov’s arrest, later posting “Liberté Liberté! Liberté?!” as a stab at the French Revolution’s well-known motto.
Musk then posted a snippet from Tucker Carlson’s interview with Durov from April 2024, in which he revealed that Western intelligence agencies, including from the U.S., have been constantly trying to infiltrate Telegram or at least pressure the CEO into collaborating.
After the arrest, Carlson himself described Durov as “a living warning to any platform owner who refuses to censor the truth at the behest of governments and intel agencies.” Former U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr said, also on X, that “the need to protect free speech has never been more urgent.”
The company is currently based in Dubai as Durov was compelled to leave Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with the Kremlin’s demands to censor opposition voices on Telegram’s predecessor, VKontakte (VK). “I would rather be free than to take orders from anyone,” he reportedly said. Durov became a target back in Russia particularly after his apps were widely used among the organizers and attendees of the 2014 Maidan protests in Ukraine.
Despite this initial problematic relationship, the Kremlin has been quick to capitalize on Durov’s arrest in France by publicly taking his side. “We immediately asked French authorities to explain the reasons for this detention and demanded that his rights be protected and that consular access be granted,” the Russian embassy in Paris said. “Up to now, the French side is refusing to cooperate on this question.” Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev even asserted that Durov “miscalculated” when he believed he would have more freedom in the West than in Russia.
On Sunday, Russian demonstrators gathered outside the French embassy in Moscow, placing paper planes—Telegram’s logo—outside its gates to protest Durov’s arrest and demand his release. One protester carried a sign that called on the French “not to follow in Putin’s footsteps,” and was allegedly detained by Russian authorities for it.
