As I have noted many times before, beyond the horror and propaganda that can emanate from the vast platform of personal “blogs” lies the reality that platforms like Telegram become powerful channels not just for military networks, but for the battlefields across modern life.
26 August 2024 (Washington, DC)– Pavel Durov, a Leningrad-born mogul and founder of Telegram, the encrypted app prized by the Russian-speaking world, was arrested by French police late Saturday night after his private plane touched down at Le Bourget, an airport near Paris. As France’s TF1 TV channel noted based on “inside sources”, various Western intelligence services had been tracking him, as had Mossad, the national intelligence agency of the State of Israel.
The 39-year-old, who reportedly holds multiple citizenships including of France and the United Arab Emirates, was detained as part of an inquiry into allegations of fraud, drug trafficking, organized crime, promotion of terrorism and cyber-bullying on Telegram, and failing to take action to curb criminal use of the app.
According to several sources, Durov had planned to “slip into Paris” with his bodyguard and his girlfriend, allowing time for his jet to refuel, and then slip out again. Turns out, police had other plans for the billionaire, who usually resides in Dubai.
There is a bit of a legal pickle
As of the early hours this morning in Paris, Durov was still in custody, waiting to see whether an investigating magistrate would extend his stay beyond the initial interrogation period, which can last up to a maximum of 96 hours. Next, Durov could be placed under formal investigation (“mise en examen“), which can come with restrictions up to and including temporary imprisonment – or he could be allowed to go free. Telegram made an immediate response:
“Telegram abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act — its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving. Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe. It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform”.
Durov’s arrest is sending shockwaves in the form of:
1. a Franco-Russian diplomatic crisis and
2. an uproar from so-called free speech advocates like X owner Elon Musk, who say Durov – who’s resisted calls for content moderation on his platform – is being silenced or censored. Musk is so threatened by similar charges against his operation of X (and so beholden to Russian money which I’ll explain further below) that nobody was surprised by his defense of Durov.
Russia’s embassy in Paris accused the French of “refusing to cooperate” with Moscow after demanding consular access to Durov, according to Russian state media. Tatyana Moskalkova, Russia’s human rights commissioner, claimed the arrest amounted to an attempt to “shut down Telegram,” a platform where “one can learn the truth about events.” Western authorities say Telegram is a hotbed not just of disinformation, but of drug trafficking and violent extremism in many forms.
The “censorship” angle
No sooner had Durov been led into his Parisian holding cell than Musk was crying out about censorship on his own platform and posting clips of Durov’s April interview with Tucker Carlson in which the Telegram CEO praises X under Musk’s watch for becoming more “pro freedom of speech”. Yes, birds of a feather. It’s not hard to see why Musk might feel kinship with Durov – both face accusations that illegal content is running rampant on their apps.
But irony abounds. A key difference is that Durov’s Telegram – whose legal base in Europe is in Belgium, with an office just a few doors down from the EU Commission – doesn’t have enough users to be designated as a Very Large Online Platform (VLOP) under the EU’s Digital Services Act content moderation rules.
But Musk’s X is a VLOP (the threshold is 45 million active users in the EU), and is thus regulated by the Digital Services Act — and in the sights of EU regulators, who are investigating the company.
And so the DSA paradox: the fact Telegram, which is used by nearly a billion people around the world, isn’t covered by the DSA likely allowed French authorities to go after its founder over its “stricter extra-judicial domestic rules” without being accused of flouting EU law.
In contrast, Musk has openly mocked the European Commission’s DSA threats with zero consequences, and there is next to no chance of him ever being plucked off a private airport tarmac by a police officer of any EU country because he is protected by all the DSA procedural rules the Commission must follow. In other words, Musk is actually lucky to be covered by the DSA as the most unpleasant thing he’s had to endure so far is a “stern letter” from EU Commissioner Thierry Breton.
Kremlin connections, security holes and the dark stuff
I was on a briefing Zoom chat at 4am this morning (10am EU time) that went into quite a bit of detail. Just a few notes from that Zoom chat.
As many media outlets have reported, the detention and search warrant was issued because Durov did not cooperate with French security forces and he did not properly moderate Telegram, which makes him an accomplice in crimes such as drug trafficking, terrorism, money laundering, child abuse, etc.
And if you look at Durov’s story over the last 15+ years, no surprise. Since the early days of VK, the Russian online social media and social networking service Durov ran but which he was forced to sell, drug trafficking, terrorism, money laundering, etc. was just standard operating procedure.
What we’re seeing now is a sharply negative reaction from the “rightwing X users”, starting with Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson and many others, demanding to free Pavel and stop censoring “The Free Speech”. However, they all fail to mention that allegations against Pavel are serious, that he has never even attempted to comply with the content moderation rules, and has allowed massive amounts of arms trafficking, illegal drugs, human trafficking, and worse to flourish on the platform – using the UAE jurisdiction as a safe heaven.
And French authorities have long been checking Durov’s connections with the Kremlin. Which is why the Russian government wants to “speak with him”. Though he is not a Russian citizen and as a French citizen is not subject to exchange or extradition.
In today’s Zoom chat, two Russian chaps laid out all of the smoking guns proving Durov does what Putin says – they laid out all of the numerous connections, despite Telegram’s and Durov’s public denial of such.
And Russian interest should come as no surprise. Telegram is the main communications channel for the Russian army – not just a news source, but a key messenger, used to coordinate action on different levels, store videos and large files, etc., etc. And while a lot of Ukrainian civilian population relies on Telegram for the news, the Ukraine military doesn’t use it, preferring WhatsApp and Signal instead. Not surprisingly, after the arrest of Durov, Russian officials were ordered to delete all official correspondence in Telegram.
Meanwhile, in Russia, they blocked Signal, widely considered as one of the most secure messaging apps with two-way encryption. As well as Facebook and Instagram (not Whatsapp yet, which is a top messenger in Russia), but are for some reason not concerned about Telegram.
There is another aspect, too. As one Zoom chat participant noted, Durov’s arrest is targeting TON cryptocurrency, which is used as a wallet by many large Russian businesspeople.
What is obvious now, is that Russia (both the Kremlin and most of the so-called opposition groups) will be yelling about double standards and free speech violation. This is a regime with zero free press, where journalists and politicians are being murdered with impunity so I just ignore that stuff.
My guess is the U.S. government certainly had a role in Durov’s arrest. The government has been struggling with an app that has 1 billion users which is completely outside of the US legal framework and yet has millions of users in the U.S. that can influence events (like it did on that infamous January 6th).
So it will be a “wait and see” approach as we watch the EU and French legal system do (or not do) their work.
Though I’m still puzzled why Durov went to France. He’s a smart and paranoid guy. He knew there was a warrant for his arrest, only valid in France. There were so many other countries where he could’ve refueled. And this happens days after his alleged meeting with Putin in Azerbaijan.
Elon Musk, cesspool owner
Last week, Judge Susan Illston of the Northern District of California ruled in favor of a motion to intervene that unsealed a list of X’s shareholders, saying it was “in the public interest”. X’s lawyers filed the list under seal last year in one of the many civil lawsuits resulting from Elon Musk’s chaotic takeover of Twitter and his mass firing of thousands of employees. After Judge Illston’s ruling, the list soon appeared on the court docket (apparently it’s just a matter of a clerk clicking to change permissions on a limited-access filing) and was reported on first by the Washington Post and then in many other publications.
The case is just one of many X-related civil suits wending their way through the courts. Musk, who decries lawfare, has aggressively pursued his own brand of it.
The list 95 names and legal entities. Some of them are familiar names for Musk-watchers: Andreessen Horowitz, 8VC, Jack Dorsey, Ross Gerber, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Sequoia, et al.
There are 26 entries related to Fidelity, the mutual fund colossus. There’s Larry Ellison, the Oracle founder and one of the richest people in the world, along with Sean Combs Capital (yup). There’s Vy Capital, the UAE-based venture capital firm, and something called Q Tetris Holdings LLC, whose directors seem to be part of the Qatari government. Binance, the global crypto giant which recently paid a $4.3 billion fine to the US government for facilitating money laundering by terrorist groups and sanctioned entities, is listed an X investor. (Binance’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao, pleaded guilty to money laundering violations and is finishing up a short stint in federal prison.)
There are two entries for Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and another for his Kingdom Holding Company, which was the largest outside shareholder of Twitter when it was a public company. Prince Alwaleed briefly opposed Musk’s takeover — prompting some gentle sparring on Twitter — but he soon came around. Given Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman’s years-long crackdown against dissent and powerful businessmen and political rivals — which included imprisoning and torturing hundreds of prominent Saudis, including Prince Alwaleed, in Riyadh’s Ritz Carlton hotel — it’s likely that MBS controls those shares.
And Comrade Musk was forced to reveal that two of the biggest investors were sanctioned Russian oligarchs: Petr Aven and Vadim Moshkovich. One funds Putin to make sure he has all the personal money he needs, and the other produces drones for Moscow being shipped to Ukraine.
What a twist. I cannot believe it. Oh wait, but wasn’t it obvious? As Casey Newton said two years ago, it will be a loss for all of the investors. But they’ll be able to use that loss against other investements.
But the investors never cared about profits. They wanted a Social Media platform that promotes their narratives, such as:
– Support Putin and Russia
– Lobbying to freeze the war in Ukraine
– End tech regulation
Musk has been called a Russian asset plenty of times before, working against the interests of the U.S. (who funds his businesses with massive subsidies) , and the democratic world as a whole. This list seems to confirm it. Hence Musk’s support for Trump (who has similar business ties).
Oh, and a few quick notes about Mark Zuckerberg
When criminals swarm to a particular online platform, it’s not because of the app’s aesthetic – it’s because of specific decisions that executives made, making the app hospitable to criminals. So according to inside sources, Zuck’s security team is “re-assessing” his travel to upcoming destinations. Perhaps even creating a no-fly list to certain jurisdictions to avoid even the smallest risk of arrest. Some highlights:
1. They’re considering the European Commission’s investigation into Meta’s role in scams, child abuse, and other online harms.
2. They’re considering the 42 state Attorneys General that are suing Meta for failing to protect children.
3. They’re considering the fact that federal prosecutors in Virginia have convened a criminal grand jury about Meta’s business dealings with drug dealers.
4. They’re considering Turkey’s recent app shutdowns for child safety issues and whether they’ll be held accountable too.
5. They’re considering the surge of teen sextortion deaths in the UK and Australia and how these countries are pushing for accountability.
6. They’re remembering the arrest of a Facebook VP in Brazil over the company “repeatedly failing to comply with judicial orders” and how history is repeating itself.
For many CEOs, future executive travel to certain regions may require a risk assessment for the possibility of detention or arrest. When the whole world wants to hold you accountable, your world starts to shrink away. Bon voyage.