Greater than a decade in the past, when Russia pushed Pavel Durov to close down opposition politicians’ pages on a Fb-like web site he created, the tech entrepreneur responded on-line by posting a cheeky photograph of a hooded canine with its tongue protruding.
“Official intelligence response to request to dam teams,” he wrote bluntly.
13 years later, Mr. Durov’s anti-establishment act seems to have landed him in contemporary bother with the authorities. On Saturday he was arrested in France as part of an investigation in prison exercise at Telegram, the net communication instrument he based in 2013, which has turn out to be a world platform outlined by its hands-on strategy to controlling person habits.
On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron referred to Mr. Durov’s arrest and stated the nation was “deeply dedicated to freedom of expression” however that “in a rustic ruled by the rule of legislation, freedoms are revered inside a authorized framework, each on social media and in actual life.”
Mr. Durov’s arrest sparked a firestorm, making him a folks hero amongst these involved about free speech and authorities censorship, particularly as controls on on-line content material have elevated worldwide. Elon Musk, the proprietor of X, and Edward Snowden, the US spy who fled to Russia after leaking categorized info, had been amongst these racing to defend Mr Durov. The hashtag #FreePavel took off on X as debate raged over the murky intersection between expertise and free speech.
Telegram stated in a statement on Sunday that it complies with the legal guidelines of the European Union. “It’s absurd to say {that a} platform or its proprietor is liable for the misuse of that platform,” the corporate stated.
Telegram has lengthy been buoyed by Mr. Durov’s anti-authoritarian spirit and dedication to free speech. A staunch techno-optimist with a knack for trolling the authorities on-line, the 39-year-old stated he strongly believes that governments mustn’t censor what individuals say or do on-line.
This guiding maxim has helped Telegram turn out to be a preferred chat app for Russians, Iranians and others residing beneath authoritarian governments. However Mr Durov’s laissez faire strategy to policing the platform has additionally attracted terrorists, extremists, arms sellers, fraudsters and drug sellers.
Secrecy trumps stricter monitoring of on-line speech, he stated. “Privateness is finally extra essential than our worry of dangerous issues taking place, like terrorism,” he posted in 2015.
“To be actually free, you should be prepared to threat every little thing for freedom,” Mr. Durov wrote on Instagram in 2018 beneath a photograph of himself on a horse within the desert.
On his private social media accounts, Mr. Durov’s posts reveal an eclectic life-style. In a current submit, he claims to have fathered greater than 100 organic kids in 12 international locations as a sperm donor over the previous 15 years. He stated he was sharing the data to assist destigmatize the topic, including that he first donated sperm to assist a good friend combating infertility and that he plans to “uncode” his DNA.
However Mr. Durov’s greatest precedence is Telegram. In 2014, he left Russia amid growing scrutiny from its safety providers and finally went to Dubai, the place he stated the federal government wouldn’t intervene in his enterprise. Since then, it has been battling Apple and large governments for management of content material. Telegram faces non permanent or everlasting bans in 31 international locations, in accordance with Surfshark, a maker of VPN software program used to avoid web blocks.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson that aired in April, Mr. Durov accused the Federal Bureau of Investigation of attempting to rent a Telegram programmer so the US authorities may achieve entry to person knowledge. In the course of the interview, considered one of his first in years, he sat in entrance of a library with two chair sculptures, one lined with knives and the opposite with phalluses – an apparent allusion to a Russian jail joke.
The FBI didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Born in 1984 within the Soviet Union, Mr. Durov moved together with his household when he was 4 years previous to northern Italy. His brother Nikolai, a math whiz who grew to become Telegram’s chief expertise officer, was proven on Italian tv fixing cubic equations. Within the early Nineteen Nineties, after the Soviet Union collapsed, the Durovs returned to St. Petersburg, the place Pavel and Nikolai participated in youth math competitions and coded on an IBM laptop the household had introduced from Italy.
At school in St. Petersburg, a good friend confirmed Mr. Durov an early model of Fb, based by Mark Zuckerberg. Impressed, Mr. Durov got down to make his personal model. Vkontakte, a service he launched in 2006, dominated Russia inside a number of years. This additionally attracted the eye of the Kremlin, which demanded details about Vkontakte customers.
Mr. Durov stated he began creating Telegram to be a safer approach to talk after Russian safety forces confirmed up at his condo round 2011. Mr. Durov, who was nonetheless working Vkontakte whereas was constructing Telegram, stated the federal government finally gave him an ultimatum: Hand over person knowledge to Vkontakte or lose management of the corporate and be compelled in a foreign country.
“I selected the latter,” stated Mr. Durov.
In a Telegram submit following Mr. Durov’s arrest this weekend, Dmitry Medvedevthe previous prime minister of Russia, stated Mr Durov “needed to be a superb man on the earth who lives properly and not using a homeland” however “he bought it incorrect”. However Mr. Durov will at all times be Russian, Mr. Medvedev wrote, and “due to this fact unpredictable and harmful.”
At instances, Mr. Durov’s anti-government streak darkened. In 2013, he hit a Russian police officer with a Mercedes in St. Petersburg; he was fleeing a site visitors cease after driving on the sidewalk to get round a site visitors jam, in accordance with a former Telegram official and a Kremlin intelligence briefing reviewed by The New York Occasions. Mr. Durov later wrote on his Vkontakte web page on the time: “If you run over a police officer, you will need to drive backwards and forwards so that each one the mess comes out,” in accordance with the briefing doc.
In a 2012 incident, Mr. Durov and different Vkontakte staff threw lots of of rubles, folded like paper airplanes, from the window of the corporate’s workplaces in St. Petersburg, resulting in a road brawl beneath.
Since renouncing Russia, Mr. Durov has lived an itinerant life, surrounded by Telegram engineers. He moved each few months, former staff stated. He has hung out in Barcelona, Bali, Berlin, Helsinki and San Francisco, even when he made the official headquarters of Dubai Telegram. He stays a critical engineering chief, usually obsessive about app options on the expense of earning money or moderating prison exercise, former officers stated.
Mr. Durov has citizenship of the United Arab Emirates and France, in accordance with Telegram. Though he travels on a non-public jet, he stated he avoids shopping for issues, preserving lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in his checking account and bitcoins to verify he may be free. Bloomberg has estimated his internet price at greater than $9 billion.
“I might quite make selections that may have an effect on how individuals talk than select the colour of the seats in the home,” he stated within the interview with Mr. Carlson.
Telegram is now approaching one billion customers worldwide, making it greater than X. Telegram works as a messaging app much like WhatsApp or iMessage. But it surely additionally hosts teams of as much as 200,000 customers and has broadcast options that assist individuals and teams share opinions with an excellent bigger viewers. The service is especially common in Ukraine, Brazil, Indonesia, India and Russia.
As Telegram use has exploded, Mr. Durov’s light-hearted strategy to policing content material has drawn criticism. Politicians, legislation enforcement and safety researchers stated the app had turn out to be a haven for disinformation, terrorist propaganda, far-right extremism, drug trafficking, youngster pornography and weapons gross sales.
Over time, Telegram has taken down some content material, similar to youngster sexual abuse materials or posts particularly geared toward inciting violence. However the authorities had been usually pissed off by Mr. Durov’s lack of cooperation. Others have raised considerations that Telegram has ties to the Russian authorities, which lifted a ban on the service in 2020. Safety specialists have additionally warned that the instrument, which does not use the identical encryption requirements as apps like Sign, is not as safe as the corporate says it’s. .
French prosecutors stated on Monday that Mr. Durov had been detained as a part of an investigation that started final month into crimes associated to youngster pornography, fraud, drug trafficking and cash laundering. French authorities famous Telegram’s lack of cooperation with legislation enforcement. Mr. Durov stays in custody, which can be prolonged till Wednesday.
For years, Mr. Durov largely averted the general public scrutiny that his Silicon Valley colleagues confronted. Whereas Mr. Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai of Google and Shou Chew on TikTok had been subpoenaed to testify earlier than Congress, Mr. Durov and his engineers maintained and up to date Telegram whereas on the go. At one level, they launched a product replace from a ship in Southeast Asia that had solely restricted connectivity, a former worker stated.
On Instagram, Mr. Durov sometimes posts shiny photographs of an idyllic life-style made for social media. An train fanatic who encourages his followers to not drink alcohol, he posts shirtless photographs of himself.
Together with a current photograph of himself soaking in an ice bathtub, he quoted Marcus Aurelius: “One ought to stand upright, not be held upright by others.” In one other waist-length purpose, he took half in a recreation known as the #PutinShirtlessChallenge. to mock the Russian chief’s shirtless on-line posts.
“For those who’re Russian, it is best to be a part of the #PutinShirtlessChallenge (or face oblivion). Two guidelines from Putin – no photoshop, no pumping. In any other case you aren’t an alpha,” he wrote.
In June, Mr. Durov mentioned his summer season plans. Whereas others had been on trip, he stated he would journey to Central Asia, the place Telegram is common, to find out how it’s used there.
Nonetheless, he stated, France was on his thoughts.
“It is getting hotter in Dubai and my associates are leaving for fancy locations just like the South of France,” he wrote. “As a French citizen, I agree that France is the most effective vacation vacation spot.”
Aurelien Breeden contributed reporting from Paris.
