2024-08-30 16:58:00
On August 24, Pavel Durov was arrested while his private jet was making a stop at Le Bourget. French authorities explain this decision by the refusal of cooperation by the CEO of Telegram, particularly in the context of investigations relating to criminal actions (drug trafficking, fraud or even pedocriminality) whose perpetrators allegedly used his messaging service to perpetrate them.
Indeed, if Telegram is widely used to communicate between individuals or on channels – which are often considered by their subscribers as sources of information –, it is also a large-scale marketplace, including for criminal circles.
A long history of non-collaboration with the authorities
While Pavel Durov is known for his role at Telegram, his adventure began much earlier, notably with the creation in 2006 of the Russian-language social network VKontakte. Social networks, including VKontakte, are heavily mobilized during the mass demonstrations of 2011 and 2012 who contest in particular the Results of the legislative elections of December 2011The Russian authorities then asked VKontakte to collaborate, but Durov did not comply. refusing in particular to close Alexei Navalny’s account.
New showdown at the end of 2013: the FSB demands that VKontakte provide data on members of groups associated with the Ukrainian Maidan, including We Are Patriots of Ukraine or even Ukrainian Offensiveto which Durov opposes a plea of inadmissibility.
Following his run-ins with the Russian authorities over his refusal to cooperate, and after selling his shares in VKontakte and being dismissed from his position as director, the billionaire left Russia in 2014.
In 2018, as he traveled from country to country, he once again refused to cooperate with the Kremlin, not following up at the request of the Roskomnadzor agency (the Russian communications policeman) to provide him with the keys to decrypt Telegram messages. Faced with Durov’s refusal, Roskomnadzor orders the blocking of the messaging service, but is not able to achieve itThis episode significantly increases the notoriety of the network, which now appears, throughout the world, as the one that has been able to resist the blocking attempts of the Russian Federation.
Durov, who remains a Russian citizen, obtained the nationality of Saint Kitts and Nevis then, in 2021, that of United Arab Emirates and that of the FranceThis is the point that explains why, as a naturalized citizen, he falls under French law, which criticizes him for his lack of collaboration – but, unlike in Russia, this concerns criminal and not political matters.
Telegram, a tool of Russian propaganda?
Although relations between the messaging service and the Kremlin have long been particularly tumultuous, there has been a certain calming down since 2018.
Telegram has been widely used since the start of the invasion of Ukraine by the milbloggers (or military correspondents), but also by agencies linked more or less directly to the Russian Ministry of Defense as well as by paramilitary groups and private military companies such as Wagner. Although Telegram has become an essential tool of Russian influencewhether in Russia or abroad, the network now has some 1 billion users.
In addition to the content (real or fake) relating to the Russian-Ukrainian conflict circulating on Telegram, the network could have been used by the various actors to store videos, to share files, or even to coordinate actions. It will be interesting to observe in the future the place that Telegram will have taken in terms of archival sources on the conflict in Ukraine, but also on Russian activities in Africa, with Russian PMCs being there very present for years.
Despite the easing of relations between Moscow and Durov, Vladimir Putin signed a package of laws requiring all administrators of Telegram channels with more than 10,000 subscribers to provide Roskomnadzor with all the information required by the agency; if they refuse, they will no longer be able to broadcast advertising on their channels, which is a significant source of incomeespecially for influential pro-war channels like WarGonzo (over 1.2 million subscribers) or Grey_Zone (over 60,000 subscribers, identified as an “official” channel of the Wagner group).
From January 1, 2025, administrators will also be required to limit access to users’ personal pages within 24 hours of receiving a request from Roskomnadzor if these users have not provided their information to the regulator. Similarly, channels with more than 500,000 users will have to provide the authorities with data about their users upon request from Roskomnadzor or the FSB.
These texts recall the demands of the 2018s; however, Durov did not react to them vehemently. This apparent calm helped to reinforce rumors of a certain proximity between the Russian authorities and the exiled billionaire, even if he publicly denies having such connections. Very recently, the Kremlin officially denied information that Vladimir Putin met Durov in Baku a few days before the latter’s arrest.
Telegram’s funding sources
Telegram would have been loss-making for several years and allegedly operated on Durov’s own funds. In 2021, advertising messages began to appear on the channels. We saw ads for sometimes dubious exchange rates, fake news, but also for cryptocurrencies.
In 2018 and 2021, Durov raised $2.5 billion to launch a cryptocurrency and cover the company’s debts. Among the Russian investors in Telegram were billionaires Roman Abramovich, Sergei Solonin (founder of the Russian payment system Qiwi) David Yakobashvili (creator of the large agribusiness Wimm-Bill-Dann), placed under sanctions by Ukraine for his proximity to the Putin regime, or Mikhail Fridman, owner of Alpha Capital, a structure whose charity project was once run by Putin’s eldest daughter. Finally, in 2021, the company VTB Capital, 60% owned by the Russian state and headed by a close friend of Putin, Andrei Kostin, spent over $1 billion on Telegram bonds.
All these links contribute to sowing doubts about the connections maintained between the platform and the Russian authorities.
Security and encryption issues
One of the arguments put forward by Telegram to assure its users that their messages will only be accessible to the recipients and authors of these messages is end-to-end encryption, or End-to-End (E2E)implemented on the platform to protect the data circulating there.
As such, the keys to decrypt the data are only on the device that sent the data and on the recipient’s device, ensuring the reliability of the system. However, encryption is not implemented by default. It must be manually enabled in order to create a secret chat, knowing that the latter must be separate for each person the chat initiator wants to talk towhich makes handling quite complex. Finally, regarding end-to-end encrypted secret discussions, a German researcher discovered in 2021 that Telegram was creating previews of links transmitted in secret chats on its servers, which would seem to indicate that the messaging service does indeed have access to secret correspondence.
In summary, Telegram is a major player in the information sphere in general, including the Russian information sphere. As such, the platform is today a leading player controlling a strategic node in Russian cyberspace. Durov’s arrest will allow (and already allows) Russia, but also representatives of radical European and American currents, particularly on the right, to take offense and invoke freedom of expression flouted by the West and by France in particular. This argument will fail to take into consideration that the reasons for the arrest are directly linked to Telegram’s non-cooperation in the context of investigations into criminal activities, and will pass over in silence the numerous laws aimed at controlling the Russian information sphere, particularly rreinforced since the invasion of Ukraine.
The fact remains that Durov’s custody, even if brief – on August 28, he was my in exam for twelve offences including “complicity in the administration of an online platform to enable an illicit transaction, as part of an organised gang”, “money laundering of crimes or offences as part of an organised gang” and “supply and import of a means of cryptology not exclusively providing authentication or integrity control functions without prior declaration” and released, but he is not authorised to leave French territory – is not that of a simple business owner, but that of a man at the heart of important geopolitical issues, particularly in the current context.
Christine Dugoin-ClementGeopolitical analyst, associate member of the IAE Paris – Sorbonne Business School Research Laboratory, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University, “standards and risks” chair, IAE Paris – Sorbonne Business School
This article is republished from The Conversation sous licence Creative Commons. Lire l’article original.
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