PARIS (Reuters) – Pavel Durov, billionaire owner and chief executive officer of the Telegram messaging application, was detained at the Bourget airport terminal outside Paris on Saturday night, TF1 television and BFM television stated, mentioning unrevealed resources.
Telegram, especially significant in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the previous Soviet Union, is rated as one of the significant social media sites systems after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok andWechat It intends to strike one billion customers in the following year.
Based in Dubai, Telegram was started by Russian- birthedDurov He left Russia in 2014 after rejecting to follow federal government needs to close down resistance areas on his VK social media sites system, which he offered.
Durov was taking a trip aboard his personal jet, TF1 stated on its internet site, including he had actually been targeted by an apprehension warrant in France as component of an initial authorities examination.
TF1 and BFM both stated the examination was concentrated on an absence of mediators on Telegram, which authorities thought about that this scenario enabled criminal task to take place undeterred on the messaging application.
Telegram did not right away reply to a Reuters ask for remark. The French Interior Ministry and authorities had no remark.
After Russia released its intrusion of Ukraine in 2022, Telegram has actually ended up being the primary resource of unfiltered – and occasionally visuals and deceptive – web content from both sides concerning the battle and the national politics bordering the dispute.
The application has actually ended up being favored methods of interactions for Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his authorities. The Kremlin and the Russian federal government likewise utilize it to share their information. It has actually likewise turned into one of minority areas where Russians can access information concerning the battle.
TF1 stated Durov had actually been taking a trip from Azerbaijan and was detained at around 20:00 (18:00 GMT).
Durov, whose ton of money was approximated by Forbes at $15.5 billion, stated some federal governments had actually looked for to press him yet the application, which has currently 900 million energetic customers, ought to stay a “neutral platform” and not a “player in geopolitics”.
Russia’s consular office in France informed the Russian state TASS information firm that it was not called by Durov’s group after the records of the apprehension, yet it was taking “immediate” actions to clear up the scenario.
Russia’s rep to worldwide organisations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, and a number of various other Russian political leaders fasted to charge France of working as a tyranny.
“Some naive persons still don’t understand that if they play more or less visible role in international information space it is not safe for them to visit countries which move towards much more totalitarian societies,” Ulyanov created on X.
Several Russian blog owners asked for demonstrations at French consular offices throughout the globe at noontime on Sunday.
(Reporting by Ingrid Melander and Gilles Guillaume in Paris, and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by David Gregorio)
