Technology | The arrested founder of Telegram is a multi-billionaire who, according to his account, has almost no ordinary assets

Telegram– founder and CEO of the messaging service Pavel Durov was arrested At Bourget Airport in Paris on Saturday evening.

According to the information of the French television channels TF1 and BFM, Durov is suspected of having contributed to the flaws in the moderation of Telegram communications, which have enabled criminal activities such as drug trafficking.

Telegram, which allegedly effectively encrypts the original sources of message exchange, has more than 800 million users. It is announced that this year they aim to exceed the limit of more than a billion users.

Russian born Durov, 39, founded Telegram with his mathematician brother Nikolai’s with in 2013 in London.

Durov has said that he came up with the idea of ​​an encrypted messaging service to be able to communicate freely while operating under pressure in Russia.

In addition to secret messaging, Telegram users can post stories, create discussion groups, or create so-called channels focused on specific content. These channels can amass millions of followers and subscribers and have become a trusted source of news for many.

Telegram has also become popular as a service that follows the progress of wars almost in real time, especially after Russia attacked Ukraine. Both a large number of experts following the war and the military leadership and authorities of Ukraine and Russia use Telegram for their own news. Propaganda is also published.

Before Telegram Durov founded the Russian social media service VKontakte, also with his brother Nikolai, as a local alternative to Facebook and Instagram.

VKontakte (now VK) quickly grew into the most popular social media service in Russia. The service, which Durov has since left, is also popular in many Eastern European countries.

Information about Durov’s wealth varies across Bloomberg’s billionaire index out of nine billion from the dollar Forbes to 15.5 billion dollars.

Durov has said that aside from cash and cryptocurrencies, he has no traditional worldly assets such as apartments, real estate or yachts.

Durov left From Russia in 2014, after refusing the demands of the Russian authorities, according to which VK should have closed the opposition’s communication channels.

He became a French citizen in August 2021. He moved to Dubai in 2017 as his place of residence and at the same time Telegram’s headquarters country.

According to French media reports, Durov was granted citizenship of the United Arab Emirates, but he is also a citizen of Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean.

It is not known whether Durov has still retained his Russian citizenship.

Russia sought to restrict the use of Telegram in 2018 after Telegram refused to give authorities access to users’ encrypted messages. The incident had little impact on Telegram’s popularity in Russia, but it caused widespread protests locally.

in France Telegram’s level of encryption and the possibilities of data breaches targeting the service have puzzled the authorities and the country’s security service.

In May, the EU’s competition and information security authorities contacted Telegram because its operations were seen to be possibly in conflict with the EU’s recent digital legislation.

New users must undertake not to incite violence or share illegal porn content. In practice, however, Telegram’s content seems to be more liberally moderated if compared to major US social media platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram owned by Meta.

Telegram’s encryption policy is also obscure. Competing apps Whatsapp and Signal say they use end-to-end encryption for messages, but Telegram does not. Like end-to-end-encryption is only given to users who initiate a secret chat.

Telegram also uses its own encryption techniques, which encryption experts cannot test, unlike, for example, Signal’s encryption level, says Bloomberg.

Thus, for users, it is uncertain how encrypted their messaging will ultimately be on Telegram.

On the other hand, the indignation of the authorities about how effectively parties engaged in criminal activities and extremists can secretly communicate may indicate that encryption protection is suitable, at least for some.

Durov according to the Reuters news agency, he himself stated that, in his opinion, freedom of speech is threatened not so much by different countries and their laws, but by technology giants like Apple and Google:

“Those two platforms can essentially censor everything you can read or access on your smartphone.”

Durov defended Telegram by saying that, according to his description, the service can be used freely by representatives of the opposition as well as the various administrations in power, so that Telegram does not choose which side it is on.