The New Yorker:

Pavel Durov may have been detained for the company’s alleged illegal conduct, but his predicament is also a signal of government concern about digital networks’ outsized power.

By Kyle Chayka

On August 24th, Pavel Durov, the billionaire Russian founder of Telegram, a messaging app and social network, was detained after his private plane landed outside of Paris, from Baku, Azerbaijan. At first, the action was greeted with shock: the C.E.O. of a major tech company, with nearly a billion users, appeared to have been punished for the misdeeds of his platform, not unlike if Mark Zuckerberg were arrested for the misinformation published on Facebook. Elon Musk quickly posted in support of Durov on X, framing the arrest as a violation of the principles of free speech. (In 2022, after his acquisition of Twitter, Musk fired much of the company’s content-moderation staff.) But when the charges against Durov were made public, last Wednesday, the six items on the list appeared deeply consequential, including accusations of complicity in drug trafficking and the dissemination of child pornography, in addition to unlawfully “providing cryptology services.” (Durov’s lawyer has called the allegations against his client “absurd.”)

Telegram, founded in 2013, combines the features of a messaging app and a social network, with broadcasting functions that allow users to reach hundreds of thousands of people at once. The app has developed a reputation for robust privacy and security, reflecting values that Durov has often promoted on X, where he has more than two and a half million followers. On its Web site, Telegram notes that, because its servers are scattered around the world, “we can ensure that no single government or block [sic] of like-minded countries can intrude on people’s privacy and freedom of expression.” Its lax content-moderation policies have helped to make it a haven for users who might not otherwise be able to post freely, including dissidents, brokers of stolen personal data, child pornographers, American right-wing extremists, and members of the Islamic State. (After Durov’s arrest, Telegram said that its content moderation meets industry standards and that it abides by E.U. laws.)

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