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Pavel Durov loves a good show.
The first glimpse many Russians caught of the current Telegram CEO — now languishing in Paris police custody — was in May 2012 when a small fleet of paper airplanes made out of cash descended on St. Petersburg’s Nevsky Prospekt, the city’s main thoroughfare.
His face half hidden by a black cap, cameras captured a young Durov hanging out by an upstairs window, clearly enjoying himself as an agitated crowd scrabbled for more 5,000 ruble notes which the young tech prodigy was raining down from above.
At the time, Durov was the head of VKontakte, Russia’s equivalent of Facebook, which had skyrocketed to success aided by the near-total absence of online regulation.
A self-professed libertarian, Durov likes to frame himself as the patron of the individual citizen against government snooping. Authorities in France, however, are now probing him for his defense of a far less noble group of people, including pedophiles, drug dealers and gangsters.
Free speech martyr or shadowy criminal? Durov’s reality is much more complex.
Durov’s revenge
Authority and Durov have never been best friends.
As a student, Durov hacked his school’s computer network so it would show a photo of his least favorite teacher with the text “must die” as a screen saver.
Now in his late thirties, he still combines the nerdy reclusiveness of Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg — taking after his brother Nikolai, who was a child math prodigy and is rumored to be the real brain behind the Durovs’ success — with the contrarian eccentricity and narcissism of Elon Musk.
Not long after the money-throwing episode, VKontakte began experiencing serious trouble. In the wake of large anti-Kremlin protests, Russia’s security service, the FSB, demanded greater control over the social media platform.
Under pressure, Durov sold his shares in the company and fled Russia in 2014, announcing his departure with a picture of dolphins and a line from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”
For the Kremlin it was a case of good riddance. VKontakte was rebranded VK and co-opted, with the children of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s acolytes appointed to key positions.
But like the heroes in his favorite films, Durov soon got his revenge. From Dubai, he doubled down on Telegram, an encrypted messaging service whose significance and success far outgrew that of his first company.
Who uses Telegram?
Today, Telegram is among the most popular messenger apps in Russia and in other post-Soviet countries, as well as in India and in a handful of autocracies such as Iran.
For people living in countries where they risk jail for an injudicious word or opinion, the app promises a safe means of communication.
What sets it apart from rival messengers, however, is that Telegram is also a media platform in its own right. Think: WhatsApp, Facebook and X, all in one.
That hybrid quality has made it a core platform for more uses than just texting, and more users than just government critics.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Telegram became a primary mode of communication on both sides of the front lines. A new group of military bloggers, some with more than a million followers, have also made it their preferred platform.
Seeming to hold no grudge against Durov, top Russian Kremlin figures and propagandists also have channels on Telegram.
But Telegram, along with YouTube, has provided a refuge on the other side of the political divide for media outlets that were blocked by Russian authorities under wartime censorship laws.
“It’s become a replacement for independent media which have been squeezed out of the public space,” Lev Gershenzon, the Russian founder of news aggregator The True Story, told POLITICO. Gershenzon previously served as head of news at Russia’s Yandex search engine, but resigned in protest of censorship at the company.
But in Europe, where citizens face fewer dangers from their democratically elected governments, Telegram’s function is “an altogether different story,” Gershenzon said.
Here it is used mostly by groups on the margins of society, such as anti-vaxxers, or by those with a vested interest in secure communications. More ominously, it has also become a mirror dark web for terrorists and those dealing in drugs, weapons and child pornography.
“In Russia, Telegram is a safe haven [from] the government’s fight against civil society,” Russian opposition politician Maxim Katz said in a livestream Monday. “In Europe, Telegram is a safe haven for criminals.”
Telegram pushed back strongly against any suggestion of wrongdoing in an online statement Sunday, saying it abides by all EU laws and that its founder “has nothing to hide.”
Meanwhile, Durov himself has remained elusive. He’s notoriously hard to reach for media, and reportedly also for governments; nor is much known about his personal life or the way his company is run. He is a citizen of the United Arab Emirates and, for reasons that remain murky, France.
When he has emerged from the shadows, it has usually been to cause a splash — to show off his six pack, to example, or to announce in a fit of TMI that he has fathered 100 children.
Is Telegram really safe?
In the months leading up to his arrest, Durov had been more visible. In a rare interview, with conservative media personality Tucker Carlson, he claimed he’d been pressured by the intelligence services of various countries to give them backdoor access to Telegram — singling the U.S. out for special mention — but that had always refused.
Many independent Russian internet experts, however, point to a number of cases when channels linked to the opposition were restricted for no clear reason. While Telegram also complied with European sanctions against propaganda network RT, Gershenzon said it seemed to suggest Durov was more open to negotiating with governments than he would have his followers believe.
In 2020, for example, Telegram’s Vice President Ilya Perekopsky met with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Mishustin аt a tech panel in the Russian city of Kazan.
Before being arrested in Paris this weekend, Durov was in Azerbaijan where, according to speculation, he tried to secure a meeting with Putin, who happened to be visiting at the same time. (The Kremlin’s spokesperson said Monday that the two did not meet.)
Regardless of the nature of his ties to Russia, Durov’s arrest is a coup for the Kremlin’s propaganda machine.
Initial reactions from Moscow suggest it will frame Durov’s arrest as an example of Western hypocrisy on free speech. At the same time, propagandists are also likely to argue Moscow was right to clamp down on Durov, first with VKontakte and more recently in 2018 when it tried unsuccessfully to block Telegram.
They’re unlikely to mention, however, that in Russia, such moves have been motivated primarily by a desire to silence the voices of political critics, rather than those of criminals. That trend has recently spread to curbing YouTube, nudging Russia in the direction of a Chinese-style firewall.
Durov’s legal team will likely argue that he can’t be held responsible for the actions of a few rotten apples, unsavory though they may be, or prioritize targeting them over the interests of some billion other users.
“Our right to privacy is more important than the fear of terrorism,” Durov said in 2016, defending Apple’s right to resist FBI access to the encrypted iPhone of a man involved in a mass shooting.
Regardless of the facts, the detained Durov has two elements playing in his favor. The first is that his case is taking place in France, where it is still possible to get a fair trial, unlike in Russia (where the acquittal rate is 0.03 percent). The second is that his case will play out partly in the informational sphere and in the court of public opinion.
Judging by his past, that’s an arena for which Durov, the showman, has been preparing his entire adult life.
