French prosecutors provided preliminary information in press release on Monday about the investigation into Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, who was suddenly arrested Saturday at Le Bourget airport in Paris. Durov has not yet been charged with any crime, but officials said he is being held as part of an investigation “against an unnamed person” and could be held in police custody until Wednesday.
The investigation began on July 8 and includes wide-ranging allegations of alleged money laundering, violations related to the import and export of encryption tools, refusal to cooperate with law enforcement, and “complicity” in drug trafficking, possession and distribution of child pornography and more.
The investigation was launched by cybercrime prosecutors of the “J3 Section” and involved cooperation with the French Center for the Fight against Cybercrime (C3N) and the National Office for the Fight against Fraud (ONAF), according to a press release. “It was within the framework of this procedure that Pavel Durov was questioned by investigators,” Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement.
Telegram did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the investigation, but said in a statement statement on Sunday, the company’s news channel posted that Durov “has nothing to hide.”
“Given that there are already numerous preliminary investigations underway in France concerning Telegram in relation to the protection of the rights of minors and in cooperation with other French investigative units, for example in the case of cyberbullying, the arrest of Durov does not seem to me to be a particularly exceptional move,” says Cannelle Lavite, a French lawyer specializing in freedom of speech cases.
Lavite notes that Durov is a French citizen who was arrested on French territory on an arrest warrant issued by French judges. He adds that the list of charges under investigation is “extensive,” a wide net that he says is not entirely surprising in the context of France’s “ambiguous legislative arsenal” aimed at balancing content moderation and free speech.
Durov is a controversial figure for his leadership of Telegram, in immense part because he has generally failed to cooperate with calls to moderate the platform’s content. In some ways, this has made him a defender of free speech against government censorship, but it has also made Telegram a haven for hate speech, criminal activity, and abuse. Additionally, the platform is often touted as a unthreatening communication tool, but much of it is open and accessible by default.
“Telegram is not primarily an encrypted messenger; most people use it almost like a social network and don’t use any of its features that have end-to-end encryption,” says John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab. “The implication is that Telegram has a wide range of capabilities and access to potentially moderate content and respond to legitimate requests. That puts Pavel Durov squarely in the middle of all kinds of potential government pressure.”
In addition, many researchers have questioned whether Telegram’s end-to-end encryption is constant once users choose to enable it.
French President Emmanuel Macron said on social media: fasting on Monday that “France is deeply committed to freedom of speech and communication… The arrest of Telegram’s CEO on French soil took place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation. It is in no way a political decision.”
But news of Durov’s arrest has stoked fears that the move could threaten Telegram’s stability and undermine the platform. The case also looks set to impact long-running debates around the world about social media moderation, government influence, and the utilize of end-to-end encryption to protect privacy.
Lavite says the case is certainly stirring debates about “the balance between the right to encrypted communications and freedom of speech on the one hand, and user protection—content moderation—on the other.” But he notes that much about the investigation is unknown and “there are still a lot of unclear areas.”
On Monday afternoon, Telegram seemed to receive download reinforcement from the situation, moving from 18th to eighth place in Apple’s U.S. App Store app rankings. Global iOS downloads were up 4 percent, and in France, the app was number one in the App Store’s social networking category and number three overall.