As Mallocon and other French journalists reported, prosecutors were secretly investigating Durov and on the alleged telegram's alleged failure in blocking the illegal activity of him and telegram – which fraud in the claims of officials, smuggling of drugs, drug trafficking, Child sexual abuse materials (CSAM), organized crime, organized crimes were included. And terrorism – on stage. French Gendermary alone counted 2,460 cases between 2013 and 2024, with legal requests for Telegram, according to the outlet liberation, became unanswered. A spokesman for the prosecutor's office, Malis D Rake, told Wired that when his team realized how much was being investigated in various departments due to lack of telegram, he decided to issue an arrest warrant. As he saw, there was a complexity in Durov's silence.
Immediately after the arrest, no one publicly commented from Telegram. One of Durov's close associates, George Lobushkin-Vkontakte, former head of PR-Is called: “I am in shock, and everyone close to Pavel feels the same. No one was ready for this situation. Lobushkin said he was “very” worried about Telegram's future if Durov was in custody.
In America, one of the first to react to arrest was Tucker CarlsonRight wing TV host. In a post on X, Carlson “gave Durov a living warning to the owner of any platform, which refuses to censor the truth at the behest of governments and Intel agencies.” Elon Musk Repost a clip from Carlson's interview and caption it “#Freepavel”. Even Edward SnowdenA rigorous critic of Telegram's security claims expressed an alarm. He said, “I am surprised and deeply saddened that Macron has descended to the level of taking hostage as a means of achieving access to private communication,” he. It was written on Macron, for its share, a statement issued that France “was deeply committed to freedom” expression, “to add arrest:” It is not a political decision in any way. It is not a political decision. It is not a political decision. It is dependent on judges.
Following Durov's arrest, on Sunday evening, his custody was extended to a 96-hour limit. According to sources in the Maillochon, he slept in a tight cell, although investigators gave rare concessions that Durov gave a new set of clothes. As part of further questions, Durov allegedly claimed that he was not unanswered by law enforcement to Techdown requests; The police only sent their requests to the wrong place. (Durov made a similar claim in 2022 when the Brazilian Supreme Court temporarily banned Telegram, essentially saying that the court's legal requests were lost in the mail.) Durov also said. That he was in touch with French intelligence services about cases of terrorism.
On August 28, about four days after his arrest, Durov was formally accused on six allegations. The maximum fine of the most serious – 10 -year imprisonment in the administration of an online platform to enable organized crime and illegal transactions, as well as the maximum fined in € 500,000 ($ 521,000) fined. Durov was released that night, but was banned from leaving the country with bail. He was also ordered to report to a police station twice a week.
The case was unprecedented against Durov, CEO of a huge mainstream stage. And it came in a moment when his Liberterian ideals and materials seemed to be an increase in license-fair attitude. The small size of Durov's team actually inspired Kasturi to set 80 percent of the employees of Twitter when they took it. Character limitA book by Kate Kangar and Ryan Mac. Musk impressed the company's moderation and trust-and-safety teams. If Durov can run a platform with approximately 60 full -time employees, most of them in Dubai, why don't they try something similar? Recently, Mark Zuckerberg fired Meta's fact-cakes in the US and loosened the enforcement of rules against inflammatory content on the company's platforms. “Recent choice,” Zuckerberg said, “was once again a cultural tipping point to prioritize the speech.”