Telegram’s harsh reaction: The encrypted messaging app has strongly criticised the arrest of its CEO Pavel Durov. The company has claimed that Durov has nothing to hide from authorities and that “it is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for the abuse of that platform.” It added that it complies with EU laws, including the Digital Services Act, which the company has been accused of violating by offering its users a platform to spread criminal activities such as extortion.
“Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and frequently travels around Europe,” Telegram said in a post on its public channel. The harsh reaction came after Durov was arrested at Le Bourget airport in France as he boarded a flight to Azerbaijan. “Nearly a billion users around the world use Telegram as a means of communication and as a source of viral information. We are waiting for a prompt resolution of this situation,” the WhatsApp rival with more than 900 million active users said.
Why was Pavel Durov arrested?
The 39-year-old tech billionaire was arrested on Saturday evening in France and is in police custody as part of a preliminary police investigation into his role in spreading crimes and related activities on Telegram. He is also being investigated for failing to control the content of the platform, which uses end-to-end encryption to safeguard the content of chats against any infiltration attempts. According to Reuters, a cybersecurity gendarmerie unit and France’s national anti-fraud unit are leading the investigation. In its response to the ongoing investigation, Telegram said: “We are awaiting a prompt resolution of this situation. Telegram is with you all.”
Who said what?
Durov’s arrest also attracted the attention of several high-profile personalities, including tech billionaire and the world’s richest person Elon Musk. He called his arrest a violation of freedom of speech, while posting a Grok-generated message with a sarcastic caption that read, “Check out this pro-First Amendment ad. It’s very compelling.” He has also interacted with several publications to voice his opposition to the arrest.
Musk was joined by former US National Security Agency intelligence contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden. “The arrest of @Durov is an attack on basic human rights of expression and association. I am shocked and deeply saddened that Macron has descended to the level of taking hostages as a means of gaining access to private communications. This demeans not just France, but the world,” he said in one of his several posts on the same topic.
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