Pavel Durov, the founder of #Telegram , was arrested when his private jet landed near Paris 72 hours ago.
Durov was born in Russia and Telegram has almost 1 billion active users. The Russian government asked for Durov to be returned to Russia. And Telegram is sometimes used for bad things, such as terrorist communication and for sending child pornography (two of the worst things imaginable).
With these facts, how can you conclude anything other than that Durov is a villain?
That's wrong. Most people have this story upside down. Durov is a #hero .
Durov's first company VK was the largest social network in Russia. Durov started it when he was around 21, basically a kid. The Russian government effectively seized it from him because he wouldn't cooperate with them.
This experience was transformational for Durov who created Telegram on his way out from VK. He designed Telegram -- in every way -- so that he wouldn't need to cooperate with autocratic governments. He wanted to create a platform that enabled citizens to communicate with each other transcending borders and autocratic regimes.
Somehow people around the world are assuming the worst about Durov right now. "The app has been used for bad things and he's Russian so he must be bad!" But they're forgetting that Telegram has played an essential role in many pro-democracy protests over the last decade. Many called the Belarus protests in 2020 "The Telegram Revolution". Here are some headlines and an excerpt from the AP from 2020.
Now let's go a level deeper. Pavel Durov became a French citizen in 2021. How did he get this passport? This is a rare feat in France and the passport was offered directly by Macron. We don't know exactly why Macron gave him this passport but maybe it was for the role Telegram played in helping organize protests in Russian proxy states?
Somehow the narrative in the West the last 48 hours (outside of X) has been to presume Durov as guilty rather than innocent. The French government just hit him with 12 charges, most of which were complicity in horrible things such as "complicitiy in possessing pornographic images of minors". You may be asking yourself, "I know that Telegram is used to send messages like this so how could he possibly be innocent?"
What you're missing is that Durov has been the enemy of autocratic governments his entire adult life. And many Western governments are rapidly descending towards autocracy, so Durov is now their enemy as well.
What you're missing with Russia's extradition request is that by asking for this Russia gains three things:
They embarrass their Western enemies and reveal the decay of the liberal values on which they were based
They discredit Durov, one of their enemies
If by some chance he is extradited to Russia, then they'll have leverage over him and may finally get that backdoor they've always wanted
I don't understand the French system well enough to know how much leverage President Macron has, but from the outside, he has always struck me as someone whose heart is in the right place. I hope he finds a way to intervene.
These charges against Durov could be levied against any social media platform. I cannot stress to you how important the next few days are. Liberal values are under attack in the West to a magnitude that very few people understand.
"If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." - George Washington
Fight.
What’s your stand on this, let’s hear them in the comment session; do you think #PavelDurov is a Hero or villain?
