Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s Arrest Is Part of a Global War on Free Speech
It’s appropriate that, days after the French government arrested Pavel Durov, CEO of the encrypted messaging app Telegram, for failing to monitor and restrict communications as demanded by officials in Paris, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that his company, which owns Facebook, was subjected to censorship pressures by U.S. officials. Durov’s arrest, then, stands as less of a one-off than as part of a concerted effort by governments, including those of nominally free countries, to control speech.
“Telegram chief executive Pavel Durov is expected to appear in court Sunday after being arrested by French police at an airport near Paris for alleged offences related to his popular messaging app,” reported France24.
A separate story noted claims by Paris prosecutors that he was detained for “running an online platform that allows illicit transactions, child pornography, drug trafficking and fraud, as well as the refusal to communicate information to authorities, money laundering and providing cryptographic services to criminals.”
Freedom for Everybody or for Nobody
Durov’s alleged crime is offering encrypted communications services to everybody, including those who engage in illegality or just anger the powers that be. But secure communications are a feature, not a bug, for most people who live in a world in which “global freedom declined for the 18th consecutive year in 2023,” according to Freedom House. Fighting authoritarian regimes requires means of exchanging information that are resistant to penetration by various repressive police agencies.
“Telegram, and other encrypted messaging services, are crucial for those intending to organise protests in countries where there is a severe crackdown on free speech. Myanmar, Belarus and Hong Kong have all seen people relying on the services,” Index on Censorship noted in 2021.
And if bad people occasionally use encrypted apps such as Telegram, they use phones and postal services, too. The qualities that make communications systems useful to those battling authoritarianism are also helpful to those with less benign intentions. There’s no way to offer security to one group without offering it to everybody.
Durov’s Second Clash With an Authoritarian Government
A CNN report on the case (I watch so you don’t have to) weirdly linked Durov to Russian President Vladimir Putin, insinuating the two are conspiring. But as Reuters helpfully points out, “Telegram, based in Dubai, was founded by Durov, who left Russia in 2014 after he refused to comply with demands to shut down opposition communities on his VK social media platform, which he has sold.”
The Internet Archive contains links to 2014 posts by Durov boasting, in Russian, that he refused to surrender information about Ukrainian users of VKontakte to the Putin regime and balked at barring the late Alexei Navalny’s opposition group from the service.
“I’m afraid there is no going back,” Durov told TechCrunch after leaving Russia to build Telegram. “Not after I publicly refused to cooperate with the authorities. They can’t stand me.”
Telegram was initially blocked in R
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