Who is Pavel Durov?
The CEO and creator of Telegram; a messaging application, Pavel Durov, was detained in Paris recently. Durov is a citizen of France-Russia. Although he has lived in Italy for a large portion of his youth, he was originally born in Russia. After flying from Azerbaijan, he was taken into custody on Saturday at Paris-Le Bourget Airport in France.
He was taken into custody because Telegram was being used for illicit activities like drug trafficking and distribution of images of child sexual abuse.
The tech tycoon, Pavel Durov has created other more famous social media platforms and a cryptocurrency. He has earned multi billion dollar wealth and has been in a conflict not only in Russia but internationally.
What is Telegram?
Telegram is an application that allows one-on-one conversations; be it a group chat or large community known as “channels”. “Channel” allows people to deliver messages to their subscribers.Unlike other apps, Telegram group chats allows as many as 20,000,00 people in comparison to a maximum of 1,024 for Whatsapp. According to experts, misinformation spreads quickly and easily in these group chats since it allows so many members all together.
Unlike other messaging applications, Telegram provides end-to-end encryption for user communication although this feature is not activated by default. They have to switch to that option. Moreover, group conversations are unreachable. As compared to other apps like Facebook Messenger and rival Signal are always encrypted from beginning to end.
Why was Durov Arrested?
According to the Paris investigator’s office, Durov was detained in France for 12 alleged criminal offenses. He was held as he was a part of a judicial investigation that started last month. The suspected violations are of selling the images of child sexual abuse, fraud, drug trafficking, assisting and facilitating planned criminal activities and keepimg records or information from investigators when required by law.
Responses
Government officials of Russia have expressed their rage to Durov’s detention. Some claims that it was politics and attracting eyes that fuelled the West’s hypocrisy on freedom of speech. Critics of the government have caught the attention of this comment, especially that in 2018, Russian authorities tried to ban Telegram but were unsuccessful and eventually lifted the ban in 2020.
The detention of Pavel Durov by the France investigators underscores the significant nature of the allegations, particularly cooperation in major criminal activities. This incident also highlights the legal hurdles he might have to face. Since his applications has been allegedly helping criminals in their crime. The investigation’s conclusion can only determine his release from the allegations.
