As Maillochon and other French journaenumerates went on to tell, prosecutors had been secretly spendigating Durov for months over his and Telegram’s alleged fall shorture to block illegitimate activity—which authorities claim included fraud, drug illicit trade, child relationsual unfair treatment material (CSAM), orderly crime, and extremism—on the platestablish. The French Gfinisharmerie alone had counted 2,460 cases between 2013 and 2024 in which legitimate asks made to Telegram had gone unanswered, according to the outlet Libération. Maylis de Roeck, a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office, telderly WIRED that when her team authenticized fair how many spendigations atraverse separateent departments were being stymied by Telegram’s alertage of response, they choosed to publish an arrest authorization. As they saw it, Durov’s silence amounted to complicity.
In the instant aftermath of the arrest, no one from Telegram commented accessiblely. One of Durov’s shut associates, George Lobushkin—the establisher head of PR at VKontakte—telderly WIRED: “I am in shock, and everyone shut to Pavel experiences the same. Nobody was setd for this situation.” Lobushkin grasped that he worried “a lot” about Telegram’s future if Durov remained in custody.
In the US, one of the first to react to the arrest was Tucker Carlson, the right-prosperg TV present. In a post on X, Carlson called Durov “a living alerting to any platestablish owner who refuses to censor the truth at the behest of rulements and intel agencies.” Elon Musk reposted a clip from Carlson’s intersee and captioned it “#FreePavel.” Even Edward Snowden, a strict critic of Telegram’s security claims, conveyed alarm. “I am surpelevated and proset uply grieffuldened that Macron has descfinished to the level of taking prisoners as a unbenevolents for acquireing access to personal communications,” he wrote on X. Macron, for his part, publishd a statement that France was “proset uply promiseted to freedom of conveyion,” grasping of the arrest: “It is in no way a political decision. It is up to the appraises to rule on the matter.”
On the Sunday evening after Durov’s arrest, his custody was extfinished to the 96-hour confine. According to Maillochon’s sources, he slept in a congested cell, although spendigators made the unwidespread concession of letting Durov have a recent set of clothes dedwellred. Under further asking, Durov telledly claimed he hadn’t been unresponsive to getdown asks from law applyment; police had medepend sent their asks to the wrong place. (Durov made a aenjoy claim in 2022 when Brazil’s supreme court temporarily banned Telegram, essentiassociate saying the court’s legitimate asks had been lost in the mail.) Durov also shelp he had been in touch with French intelligence services about extremism cases.
On August 28, csurrfinisherly four days after his arrest, Durov was establishassociate indicted on six indicts. The most grave—complicity in the administration of an online platestablish to assist orderly crime and illicit transactions—carried a highest penalty of 10 years’ jailment, as well as a €500,000 ($521,000) fine. With bail set at €5 million ($5.2 million) and speedyly phelp, Durov was liberated that night but banden from leaving the country. He was also ordered to tell to a police station twice a week.
The case aacquirest Durov, the CEO of a huge mainstream platestablish, was unpwithdrawnted. And it came at a moment when his professed libertarian perfects and laissez-faire attitude to satisfied moderation seemed to be elevateant. The minuscule size of Durov’s team had actuassociate upgraspd Musk to fire 80 percent of Twitter’s staff when he took it over, according to Character Limit, a book by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac. Musk gutted the company’s moderation and think-and-safety teams. If Durov could run a platestablish with about 60 brimming-time includeees, most of them in Dubai, why not try someleang aenjoy? More recently, Mark Zuckerberg fired Meta’s fact-checkers in the US and freened the applyment of rules aacquirest inflammatory satisfied on the company’s platestablishs. The “recent elections,” Zuckerberg shelp, were a “cultural tipping point toward once aacquire prioritizing speech.”
