Pavel Durov, the guy who literally created Telegram, just got arrested in France. I know, right? So, here’s the scoop: Pavel was nabbed by French authorities as soon as he landed in Paris, and they’re throwing all sorts of crazy charges at him—like, we’re talking money laundering, drug trafficking, and even something about pedophilia content being shared on Telegram! Yikes!
Pavel was flying in from Azerbaijan and boom, he’s arrested right there at the airport. According to some French officials, this whole thing is about how Telegram has been used for all sorts of illegal stuff, and they’re blaming him because he’s the guy in charge. One source close to the investigation told TF1, “He made a big mistake this evening. We don’t know why… Was this flight just a stopover? In any case, he’s in custody.” So, like, the French anti-fraud directorate is all over this, and he’s supposed to go before a judge real soon.
And, like, the backlash is insane. Russia’s totally freaking out over this. Their Foreign Ministry is demanding answers, and they’re acting like this is a total violation of Pavel’s rights. And Elon Musk even tweeted “Free Pavel,” which is so typical of him. One billionaire to another, right? Vladislav Davankov, the Deputy Chair in Russia’s State Duma, said he straight-up asked Sergei Lavrov to get involved and get Pavel out of there. It’s basically an international incident now.
But, okay, back to Telegram. So, like, this app has been around since 2013, and it’s super popular because it’s all about privacy and encryption. But that’s, like, exactly the problem—criminals and extremists totally love it because it’s so hard for authorities to monitor what’s going on. David Thiel, who’s this big deal at Stanford University’s Internet Observatory, literally said, “Telegram is less secure and more lax in its policy and detection of illegal content compared to other platforms.” So yeah, people are really blaming Pavel for letting all this bad stuff happen.
The French President, Emmanuel Macron, even had to chime in and clarify that this isn’t political—it’s all about law and order. He was like, “On social media, as in real life, freedoms are exercised within the law so as to protect citizens and respect their fundamental rights,” trying to shut down all the drama about how this is an attack on free speech.
Right now, Pavel’s sitting in a French jail, and if they actually go through with all these charges, he could be looking at, like, 20 years in prison. It’s totally wild, and who knows what this is going to mean for Telegram and all the other apps out there that are all about privacy. Like, are they going to start cracking down on everyone now?
So yeah, this is definitely a story to watch. I mean, it’s not every day that a tech billionaire ends up behind bars, right?
XOXO,
Valley Girl News
