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Durov couldn’t be reached for comment.
The UAE asked French officials for access to Durov, and is “closely following the case”, the country’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. Earlier, the Russian embassy in France had demanded access to Durov, who was born in St Petersburg and lived in Russia until 2013.
Durov’s arrest is all but certain to complicate efforts to take the company public, a route he has indicated he favours over selling it at valuations he claims are in excess of $US30 billion.Credit: AP
Lightning rod
Telegram has long been a lightning rod for controversy. European Union officials argue it fuels disinformation, including conspiracy theories that sparked recent anti-immigrant rioting in the UK and allegations that Russian intelligence services used the site to recruit agents. The EU has looked at how the platform reports its number of users to see if it can apply its Digital Services Act to force Durov to better moderate content.
Durov has repeatedly ignored requests from democratic and authoritarian governments alike to better moderate content on his platform. European Union officials argue Telegram fuels disinformation and promotes pro-Kremlin propaganda. Russia, for its part, tried and failed to block the app after it refused to turn over user messages.
Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov in a picture posted on the app.Credit: Telegram
Telegram releases very little financial information, making pinning down its value more difficult than many other social media and messaging platforms. Durov is the sole owner of the company, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Telegram is unique among major social media networks in that it doesn’t use algorithms to promote content to its users. Instead, users subscribe to channels and see posts and videos in chronological order. While that lets the platform argue it only serves users what they choose to see, bad actors have exploited the platform’s structure by posting inflammatory content in mainstream channels and then bringing new followers into more radicalised chat communities.
The site played a central role in co-ordinating violent demonstrations in August in the UK where anti-migrant demonstrators clashed with police and threatened immigrant communities, said Moustafa Ayad, an executive director at the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, a think tank that tracks extremism. Others have used Telegram to disseminate bomb-making instructions and guides on how to shoot at US power stations as part of plans to cause havoc.
Before Telegram, Durov founded Facebook-lookalike VKontakte in 2006, which grew to Russia’s biggest social network thanks in part to easy sharing of pirated movies and music. In 2012, he and a colleague threw 5000 rouble notes — worth over $US150 each at the time — from their office window in central St Petersburg.
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Durov also took a stand against Russia’s KGB successor, the Federal Security Service, when it sought to get VKontakte to shut down protest groups that formed in 2011.
Durov ultimately was forced to sell his stake in VKontakte. He claims he left Russia after refusing to turn over data on Ukrainian users during the country’s 2013 Maidan protests, which led to the overthrow of its pro-Kremlin leader Viktor Yanukovych.
Bloomberg