{"id":49112,"date":"2024-08-26T18:38:34","date_gmt":"2024-08-26T22:38:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=49112"},"modified":"2024-08-26T19:07:41","modified_gmt":"2024-08-26T23:07:41","slug":"what-to-know-about-telegram-the-messaging-app-whose-ceo-was-arrested-over-the-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2024\/08\/26\/what-to-know-about-telegram-the-messaging-app-whose-ceo-was-arrested-over-the-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"What to know about Telegram, the messaging app whose CEO was arrested over the weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France over the weekend has thrust the popular messaging service and its enigmatic founder into the spotlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Russian-born Durov was detained Saturday at Paris\u2019s Bourget Airport on a warrant related to Telegram\u2019s lack of moderation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those charges include allegations that his platform was complicit in aiding fraudsters, money launders, drug traffickers and people spreading child sexual exploitation content, French prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement Monday. Beccuau added that Durov is accused of refusing to communicate \u201cinformation or documents\u201d related to the investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The app has also recently come under scrutiny for its use by terrorist groups and far-right extremists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Durov\u2019s arrest has sparked a debate about freedom of speech and who has responsibility for illicit content on the internet. Russian lawmaker Maria Butina \u2014 who was convicted in the US on spying charges and deported to Russia in 2019 \u2014 on Sunday called the CEO a \u201cpolitical prisoner,\u201d according to Reuters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement<\/a> posted to X on Monday that Durov\u2019s arrest was \u201cin no way a political decision.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m reading false information about France following the arrest of Pavel Durov,\u201d Macron said, adding that the arrest \u201ctook place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Paris prosecutor\u2019s office said Monday that Durov\u2019s arrest is part of a broad investigation into a range of criminal activity dating back to July 8 on Telegram, with a total of 12 separate charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telegram has said that it abides by EU law and that Durov has \u201cnothing to hide.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s what you need to know about Telegram and why it\u2019s come under fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is Telegram?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telegram is an encrypted messaging service that was launched in 2013 by Durov and his brother, Nikolai. The app now has more than 950 million users, according to a post from Durov last month, making it one of the most-used messaging platforms in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The platform has evolved into a crucial service in many countries, used for everything from day-to-day chatting and sending photos and documents to disseminating government messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telegram became popular among Trump supporters and followers of the Q-Anon conspiracy theory in 2021 after mainstream social media platforms such as Facebook began cracking down on false claims that the 2020 US presidential election was stolen. This prompted concern from law enforcement officials who worried that the disinformation could lead to more real-world violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last fall, Telegram restricted access to several channels closely associated with or operated by Hamas amid the militant group\u2019s war with Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And earlier this month, the messaging app began actively removing calls to violence from the platform following reports that the app was being used to organize far-right, anti-immigrant riots in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTelegram\u2019s moderators are actively monitoring the situation and are removing channels and posts containing calls to violence,\u201d Telegram spokesperson Remi Vaughn said in a statement at the time. \u201cCalls to violence are explicitly forbidden by Telegram\u2019s terms of service.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Telegram moderators proactively monitor public parts of the platform, as well as rely on AI tools and user reports to remove content that breaks its rules, Vaughn said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its statement on Sunday, Telegram said that \u201cit is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who is Pavel Durov?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Durov, Telegram\u2019s billionaire founder and chief executive, was born in the Soviet Union in 1984. He has said he showed an aptitude for math and coding from an early age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2006, Durov launched Vkontakte (VK), a social media site, when he was a 21-year-old fresh out of university. As the app grew, he became colloquially known as the \u201cMark Zuckerberg of Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when protesters began using VK to organize demonstrations in Kyiv against Ukraine\u2019s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovich, in 2013, Durov said the Kremlin asked the site to hand over private data of Ukrainian users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Durov refused, resigned as VK\u2019s CEO, sold his shares in the company and, in 2014, left Russia. \u201cI don\u2019t want to take orders from anyone,\u201d Durov has said of his decision to give up the company and leave his home country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Durov also launched Telegram in 2013. He now lives in Dubai, where Telegram is headquartered, and is also a citizen of France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to running Telegram, Durov has become something of an online influencer, sharing images on Instagram of his world travels (and, often, shirtless photos). He also claims to have fathered more than 100 children thanks to sperm donations he had made over the past 15 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France over the weekend has thrust the popular messaging service and its enigmatic founder into the spotlight. Russian-born Durov was detained Saturday at Paris\u2019s Bourget… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"17","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[9571,9570],"class_list":["post-49112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-regional-and-world-news","tag-the-messaging-app-whose-ceo-was-arrested-over-the-weekend","tag-what-to-know-about-telegram"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49112"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49120,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49112\/revisions\/49120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}