One year after his dramatic arrest in France, Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of the messaging and social media app Telegram, has re-emerged with a powerful and defiant statement on his commitment to user privacy. In a post on X, the Russian-born entrepreneur declared, "I'd rather die — no third party has access to private messages on Telegram." His strong words are a direct response to a suggestion that he had given French authorities "backdoor" access to user data, and they highlight a central conflict of the digital age: the struggle over user data privacy between tech companies and national governments.
Durov was arrested in August 2024 and detained for four days on accusations of being complicit in allowing criminal activity to occur on Telegram. The charges, which included "complicity" in the distribution of child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking, were based on the argument that he allowed illegal activity to flourish on the platform while refusing to cooperate with authorities. Durov, who has denied all the charges, believes his arrest was "legally and logically absurd" and a direct attack on the principle of a CEO's accountability for the actions of their users.
In a four-part thread on X, Durov shared his perspective on the ongoing case, which he says is "still struggling to find anything that I or Telegram did wrong." He maintained that Telegram's moderation practices align with industry standards and that the company has "always responded to every legally binding request from France." His stance is a clear refusal to compromise on the app's core principle of end-to-end encryption, which he believes is the only way to protect users' privacy.
Durov's battle with French authorities is not his first rodeo. Before creating Telegram in 2013, he founded the Russian social media network VKontakte (VK). In 2014, he sold his stake in VK and fled Russia after rejecting Kremlin pressure to turn over the data of Ukrainian protest leaders. This history of defiance against government overreach has made him a symbol of the struggle for digital freedom and privacy.
With about 1 billion active users globally, Telegram has grown into an influential platform, becoming a primary source of information in conflicts like the war in Ukraine and Russia. However, it has also been called out by critics and researchers for refusing to remove graphic, misleading, and sometimes criminal content. This has put the company in a precarious position, caught between its commitment to free speech and privacy and the legal and ethical obligations to combat illegal activities.
