Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was arrested Saturday at France’s Bourget airport in Paris. The 39-year-old Russian-born billionaire was reportedly detained over the company’s lack of content moderation.
Telegram is among the world’s most popular social media apps, after Meta apps Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, as well as YouTube, TikTok, and WeChat. The app’s nearly 1 billion users can send encrypted messages in groups of up to 200,000 people. The app is popular among journalists, activists, and dissidents, but has also been used by extremist groups and people involved in drug trafficking and the distribution of child sexual abuse images.
Telegram markets itself as a haven for free speech and boasts fewer than 100 employees—significantly below the thousands of people employed at Meta, YouTube, and TikTok. The arrest comes as the European Union has begun implementing its Digital Services Act, imposing stricter rules on content moderation.
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