The French High Court Investigates the Use of Telegram to Identify Threats, Terrorist Activities, and Child Pornography: A Statement by Pavel Durov
Telegram stated in a statement that it is absurd to hold Durov responsible for people who abuse the platform and pointed out that the app abides by European Union laws.
Durov was a French citizen who had an arrest warrant for him from the French courts. She says that the list of charges involved in the investigation is a wide net and that is not surprising in the context of France’s ambiguous legislative arsenal.
WIRED was diverted to France’sMinistry of Justice after representatives from OFMIN refused to answer questions about the investigation. The Paris Prosecutors Office said in an email that a full press release will be published on Monday.
An arrest warrant was issued by OFMIN, a new law enforcement office that began operations in November and is tasked with preventing violence against children. Durov claimed in July that he has over 900 million users on Telegram and that the site has been used to traffic drugs, promote terrorism, and organize crime.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov continues to be detained in France in connection with a criminal investigation into the messaging app’s failure to cooperate with law enforcement requests, authorities in Paris announced on Monday.
The investigation began on July 8th and is centered around a number of charges including money laundered, violation of import and export laws, possession and distribution of child pornography, and more.
“At the heart of the case is the lack of moderation and cooperation of the platform,” said Jean-Michel Bernigaud, a top police official in France wrote on LinkedIn. “Particularly in the fight against child pornography.”
Former Facebook executive Brian Fishman who studies counter-terrorism wrote on Threads that Telegram has ignored law enforcement requests examining terror groups and child pornography for years.
Elon Musk mused on X that the future could include “being executed for liking a meme,” and self-proclaimed whistleblower Edward Snowden described Durov’s arrest an assault on “the basic human rights of speech and association.” Durov being picked up is akin to taking hostages as a means of gaining access to private communications.
The president of Telegram was arrested in France as part of an ongoing judicial investigation. It is in no way a political decision. The judges are in a position to make a decision on the matter.
The investigation was initiated by “Section J3” cybercrime prosecutors and has involved collaboration with France’s Centre for the Fight against Cybercrime (C3N) and Anti-Fraud National Office (ONAF), according to the press release. “It is within this procedural framework in which Pavel Durov was questioned by the investigators,” Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau wrote in the statement.
Lavite says the case certainly invokes debates about “the balance between the right to encrypted communication and free speech on the one hand, and users’ protection—content moderation—on the other hand.” She says there is a lot of unanswered questions about the investigation, and there is still a lot of blurry zones.
Telegram climbed the App Store to No. 1 in the global social network category by the end of the week: Apple’s 7th App Store ranking
On Monday afternoon, Telegram moved from 18th to 8th place in Apple’s US AppStore rankings, as a result of the situation. Global iOS downloads were up by 4 percent, and in France the app was number one in the App Store social network category and number three overall.