The case of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov: Investigation of her criminal misconduct and a decision to sue Telegram for violating the Internet censorship

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is forbidden from leaving French territory after being charged for complicity in running an online platform that allegedly enabled the spread of sexual images of children, creating an uncertain future for the messaging app that has become one of the world’s biggest social media platforms.

Since his arrest, both the UAE and Russia have requested consular access to Durov, who has citizenship in both countries. It’s unclear why Durov, who also obtained a French passport after leaving Russia, was in France. “I don’t take holidays,” he said on his Telegram channel in June.

The French authorities noted a lack of response from Telegram to legal requests. She said that this led to a National Jurisdiction for the Fight Against Organized Crime opening an investigation into the possible criminal liability of the messaging service’s executives. The preliminary investigation began in February 2024 and initial investigations were coordinated by the OFMIN, an agency set up to prevent violence against minors, her statement added.

“This is what led JUNALCO [the National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organized Crime] to open an investigation,” she said. Durov has been forbidden from leaving the country and must report to a police station twice a week.

Durov was the first high-profile victim of a change in mindset from officials who were losing patience with the platforms they considered to be fueling crime or roiling domestic politics. “Durov’s arrest comes at a particularly volatile time for online platforms and their users,” Evelyn Austin, director of Dutch digital rights foundation Bits of Freedom, said in a statement.

This is larger than Telegram. Big tech fines in Europe have reached into the billions of dollars. Negotiations are continuing on new laws that threaten encryption. The idea of social media platforms being responsible for criminal actions is growing. A poll in the UK this summer found that two-thirds of respondents agree that companies should be held responsible for hosting content that incites riots, with the same number of respondents feeling the sites are regulated too little. Calls by politicians and judges to suspend access to a range of social media sites after periods of disorder have become almost commonplace: in France last year, amid rioting in response to police violence; in the midst of riots in the French-Pacific territory of New Caledonia; and today in Brazil, where the government threatened to block X as part of a dispute over misinformation.