Front Burner - Billionaire Telegram CEO charged in criminal investigation

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

On Wednesday, Telegram founder Pavel Durov was charged in France with a wide range of crimes related to illicit activity on the app. His detainment is part of an ongoing investigation by French authorities into the social media app. Telegram, with its more than 900 million users, often offers a window into what’s happening on the ground in countries where state censorship is rampant. At the same time, it can be a haven for hate speech and criminality because of the app’s encryption and lack of content moderation.Durov’s arrest has already lit up a firestorm of debate on whether tech leaders are accountable for what happens on their platforms. Tech journalist Chris Stokel-Walker looks at what Telegram has come to represent, the scrutiny of its founder, and what this case might tell us about the limits of free speech online.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. I'm Jonathan Mopetzee, in for Jimmy Poisson. Why is the nation supporting us? Because we were on the march of justice. We were attacked first by artillery, then by helicopters. We captured the headquarters building.

We have not interfered with the work of a single person. There are people on the streets unfurling Wagner PMC flags. In the summer of 2023, the Russian warlord Yevgeny Progozhin declared on the messaging app Telegram that he and his men were leading a rebellion against the Russian military command. Millions of people watched him narrate what happened. It was a window into the Russia-Ukraine war that you couldn't find elsewhere, that you could only find on Telegram. The social media app, with more than 900 million users, has become central to day-to-day life in countries like Russia, Ukraine, and India.

For many, it's a place to get first-hand accounts of war or protest. They see it as a democratizing force that fosters free speech in countries where state censorship and repression are rampant. But it's also a haven for hate speech, far-right extremism, and criminality because of the app's encryption and lack of content moderation. On Saturday, Telegram's founder, Pavel Durov, was arrested and detained in France as part of an investigation by prosecutors there. They're looking into criminal activities on the app, ranging from drug trafficking, distribution of child sexual exploitation material, to promoting terrorism and cyberbullying. Telegram released a statement following the arrest, saying in part,

It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform. On Wednesday, preliminary charges were filed against Durov. He was released on bail, but barred from leaving the country. His arrest has already lit up a firestorm of debate about free speech online and whether tech leaders are accountable for what happens on their platforms. I've got tech journalist Chris Stoeckel-Walker with me to talk through all this. We'll look at what Telegram has come to represent, the scrutiny of its founder, and what this case might tell us about the limits of free speech online.

Chris, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. I'm hoping that we can start with the reaction to the arrest of Pavel Durov, specifically the anger over it. Where is that anger coming from? I think it's from a couple of things. I think it's first the magnitude of the situation and just the fact that a billionaire executive founder of a huge messaging service with, as you said, 900 million plus users can effectively be snatched off an aeroplane when they land in Paris, France. to be given this wrap list of sort of alleged offenses that they want to investigate and question him about is itself pretty unprecedented. I can't think of a prior precedent for this where something similar has happened to someone in the tech industry in such a significant position of power. And so I think that's in part why there's been such an uproar. But then also there is the element of what are the consequences of this and why is the reasoning

behind Pavel Durov's initial arrest. And I think it is around that element of free speech, around that element of which or to what extent the executives in charge of these apps and services that we use day in, day out in our lives are directly responsible for the consequences of what the users do on them. Russian officials described Durov's arrest as an example of Western hypocrisy. The arrest of Pavel Durov means that there is no freedom of speech, that the freedom of speech in Europe is dead. And then also underpinning this, this element that has been taken on by

some of Durov's supporters and some of his most outspoken fans. Let's unpack that a little bit and specifically, who are the kind of usual and unusual suspects who've come to his defense. Yeah, the most obvious and the sort of loudest on social media has been Elon Musk. And I think that's in part because Musk and Durov share a kind of commonality, both a little bit in terms of their political and their societal outlook. The arrest has sparked outrage from prominent figures, including Elon Musk, who wrote hashtag free Pavel on X.

Ex-owner Elon Musk, who posted the details of Durov's arrest, sarcastically captioning it, check out this ad for the First Amendment. Then there are those who use Telegram, people who both legitimately and for illegitimate purposes might use the app. One of the things that's really interesting about Telegram's genesis and its growth over that time to get to that near billion user base is that it occupies a kind of gray area in terms of how it operates. Pavel Durov, both because he is a very much a free speech advocate and also I think because of his upbringing and his kind of history with Russia this is a person who was born in Russia ended up leaving around about a decade ago ironically over not wanting to give user data to the Russian government for a previous company that he owned and Russia has this kind of really odd quasi-legal

And Russia has this kind of really odd quasi-legal almost marketplace of stolen or secreted away data, often from official databases. So there is this idea that you can often do something a little bit nefarious while at the same time having a kind of normal, well-functioning app. And I think that that's in part why Telegram has become so popular is that for those who want to use it because it offers encryption and a way to kind of stay away from prying eyes, that's great. They'll use it for that. But also for those who are, I suppose, wanting to kind of deliberately hide their tracks for various reasons, this has become a little bit of a safe haven. And so they are very outspoken on the consequences of this. Given that reputation for privacy and encryption that you just mentioned, it's been a really popular app also with activists who live under repressive regimes. I'm thinking about how widely it was used during the Masa Amini protests in Iran. These are the videos Iran doesn't want you to see.

Police firing in the streets, women cutting their hair, burning hijabs in rage, students demonstrations. ...by climate activist groups like Extinction Rebellion. What role has Telegram played in recent protest movements? Yeah, it's kind of been a drumbeat of protest, of war, of conflict, and of just, I suppose, anti-establishmentism. And that's been really interesting and is a really vital part of our digital society. So you mentioned some of the elements there, Extinction Rebellion, some of the other protests that are going on around the world. Simultaneously, this was a really vital place for both sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict after Russia invaded the country a couple of years ago to both try and get their message out and also to try and communicate amongst themselves, either in offense in the case of Russia or in defense in the case of Ukraine, a way of kind of messaging each other and has become hugely popular as a bit of everyday use, essentially, in Eastern Europe. So, you know, we have seen over the few days since Durov's arrest a kind of shorthand that has captured the public's imagination, which is that Telegram is a solely evil app. And that is in part because of the list of

allegations that French authorities are making about the app in result of its arrest of Durov. He's accused of failing to curb the criminal use of his platform and for not cooperating with police investigating the exploitation of children, fraud, drug trafficking, and individuals promoting terrorism. But actually, what's often overlooked is that this has a sort of vital role to play in large parts of society. Chris, I was wondering if you could, you know, talk a bit more about what sets Telegram apart from other social media platforms. It is a couple of things. Number one is the way that it is set up and the ability for its users to encrypt every bit of conversation

that they have. Now, in the reporting after Durov's arrest, Telegram has been referred to as an encrypted messaging app. It's not quite that for the majority of users, particularly unless you opt in to encryption. I think a lot of people might find themselves caught out, thinking that their conversations through Telegram were being sent away from prying eyes and actually realizing since Durov's arrest, they've looked a little bit more closely at their conversations and realized they didn't actually turn on this thing. So that is one reason why it's been popular and why it's been different. WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp,

and other services, that has encryption by default on all of its messaging. But there is a suspicion just by dint of the fact that Meta is a huge, large company based in the US, that invariably they would be willing to give up some of their user data if asked by government. And that brings us on to the second thing that makes Telegram really unique, And that brings us on to the second thing that makes Telegram really unique, which is whereas many other tech executives have said publicly, we will accede to these requests by law enforcement, by government, by relevant authorities to hand over user data, to hand over messages, to hand over whatever extent is required in order to meet those demands. Pavel Durov says, we won't do that. Telegram doesn't do that. It's not engaged with an awful lot of international and multinational organizations relating to, for instance, the distribution of images of child abuse, internet watch foundation and nook mech the national center for missing and exploited children in the united states telegram is neither is

involved in neither of those organizations whereas many of the other social media and messaging apps that we have are and that is both a boon for those who believe in being able to say what you want without having any sort of eavesdropping or wiretapping. But it's also a risk because as we've learned and as the French allege here, through that silence, under that shroud, really bad things are happening. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. to impart by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner

create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I want to talk about Durov himself. He has kind of an interesting backstory. He developed Telegram not long before leaving Russia and the Russian Facebook-like social media company that he founded. Tell us more about who Durov is and what he believes. Yeah. Born, raised in Russia, very, very precocious, very, very keen to develop his own technology, has been equated to the Russian Mark Zuckerberg in large part because of his role creating VK, also known as VKontakte, which is basically the Russian equivalent of Facebook. The Russian opposition started to use VK to organize large protests in Russia, where like almost half a million people would go and protest on the main square or some of the main squares of the city. We were requested to ban these communities on VK by the government, and I refused. That caused him to run into trouble with the Kremlin when

they asked him to hand over user data of essentially dissidents against the Russian state back in the sort of early to mid 2010s. And Durov refused. That didn't go too well with the Russian government as well. At the end of that year, I had to make a difficult decision because I was offered basically a choice between complying to whatever the leaders of the country told me to do. The other one was I could sell my stake in the company, retire, resign as the CEO, and leave the country. I chose the latter. After Durov left, he kind of started to really build up Telegram in earnest, as he said, and started it just before he essentially put himself into exile

for refusing to accede to the Russian government's request to hand over data on VK users, and then built up Telegram with his brother to become huge, to kind of do the opposite of those issues that he encountered with the Kremlin, to not hand over data, very explicitly so, and not just to refuse to do it, but to kind of publicly flout doing it as well. Which is why I think it's managed to gain this audience. And it does have an audience that tends to be anti-establishment, that tends to be out of the mainstream. And it occupies this odd position out of the mainstream.

There are very few apps and services that have nearly a billion users that probably the average person wouldn't have been able to name prior to this weekend. And yet Telegram is one of them. And Pavel Durov is super rich, right? Anywhere between 9 billion and 15 billion US dollars is his net worth, depending on who you ask. And yet he's not really a household name in the same way that you'd expect someone of that worth to have. I think that's in part because of the kind of space in which he's carved out for himself and the space which he's carved out for Telegram, which is decidedly out of the mainstream and kind of happy to not be recognized all that much. You don't go to the US? I try not to. I can go, but it's too much attention,

like I've described before. Yeah, because at some point, if you run something like this, you're a player in world politics. I mean, whether you want to be or not, don't you think? We definitely don't want to be a player. We want to be a neutral platform

that is impartial and doesn't take any side. But you're probably right that there's some role we have to play. He does have a reputation. You know, there's lots of, he posts lots of images of himself online shirtless, given very few interviews. He claims to have something like 100 biological children. And some people have kind of described him as an avatar of techno-optimism. How do you see Durov as a representative of this kind of broader, for lack of a better term, tech bro movement or philosophy? Yeah, he's curiously libertarian Silicon Valley tech bro for being someone who is naughty in Silicon Valley.

A citizen of the United Arab Emirates and France, he spends his time prior to his arrest mostly in Dubai, but as you say, has this really jet set, really lavish lifestyle. That is kind of separate, I suppose, from his role as CEO of Telegram. That is more him showing off in a kind of gaudy, nouveau riche way. And it's a demonstration of how rich and powerful you can be by operating some of these services and how godlike maybe you can feel as a result of it. And we've seen this with a lot of these kind of tech pro CEOs. Mark Zuckerberg does similar stuff. He kind of posts himself on chess. He's started becoming a little bit of a style icon, maybe in the same way that Durov does. We haven't yet seen him as shirtless as durov i admit but there is a kind of god complex that we get with these sort of tech

bro ceos which is they've built these apps and services and companies behind them that span countries and often are bigger than countries when you measure their GDP. And that, I think, gives them maybe an inflated sense of self that makes them think, as Durov seemingly has, that the rules aren't really made for him. You mentioned his jet-set lifestyle, leaving Russia after a conflict with the authorities there, spends most of his time in exile and he's based in Dubai. What can you tell us about his current relationship with the Russian government? Like, why was the Kremlin so eager to defend Durov and Telegram after the arrest? telegram after the arrest? This is the really interesting thing and the kind of, I guess, multi-billion dollar question literally around this whole situation. In theory, Pavlyudorov should be persona non grata to the Russian state. You know, he ignored their request. He stood up to

Vladimir Putin and put himself into exile effectively as a result of that. So Russia shouldn't be taking an interest in this. And yet we've seen up to and including former President and Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev saying that although he was kind of a citizen of nowhere, he was at first a Russian citizen. And so Russia demands to know what's going on. Elon Musk is free. Mark Zuckerberg is free. But Pavel Durov is now in prison. Why? Because he's Russian. He's a Russian by nationality and he's Russian by his citizenship. So he has been traced as a person to be a scapegoat for the West as an evil Russian. And I think that's interesting. And this is where we get into the kind of more conspiratorial

gossipy element. We know that Durov was in Baku, Azerbaijan, just before his arrest. We know that Vladimir Putin was there similarly. Many people have jumped to conclusions around that. I don't know or think necessarily that there is something to that. But we do know that Telegram has remained a really vital source of communication for Russia in its invasion of Ukraine. getting five, which is, this is a former Russian citizen, and you would expect your home country to try and defend you when frankly, something as terrible as this happens to you. And at the same time, telegram is of strategic importance to Russia's military as it invades Ukraine. And therefore, they want to try and make sure that it's preserved, and that their secrets aren't necessarily in the hands of the French authorities. So that I think is why there is this kind of suspicion going on and why Russia is so keen to defend them, maybe less so than some of the out there theories that are being distributed online. You touched on this a bit earlier, you know, that hands-off approach, big tent approach that

Durov advocates for and that basically guides telegrams operations. You know, it's led to a lot of criticism. It's been on the radar of law enforcement for a while now because terrorist groups like ISIS have been known to use it for recruiting and organizing. What do we know about how widely it's used by extremist groups? We know that it is kind of the tool of choice. It's not necessarily that Telegram has set itself up to be a haven for criminals. It's just that how it set itself up to preserve free speech and to keep people's security so happens to coincide with a lot of what criminals are looking for. And so that is, I think, why it has become hugely useful. And not least also because once information is out on telegram

the moderation there is almost non-existent and so you can share gore you can share cartoons you can share hate speech as willingly as you can share conversations about the weather and for many people that's a real attraction. reporting by Politico, apparently their concern or what's motivating the investigation is Telegram's alleged unwillingness to help them with an investigation into child exploitation on the site. Has Telegram ever complied with requests to take down extremist or illegal content? They make a big deal of not doing so publicly. It's not that we don't care, but we think it's important

to have this platform that is neutral to all voices, because we believe that the competition of different ideas can result in progress and a better world for everyone. But we do have indications that they have a few types. So there is a suggestion by Der Spiegel, the German news magazine, that they have previously acceded to government requests to hand over some data there in part of a criminal investigation. This was back in around about 2022.

And also from personal anecdotal experience, I have reasons to believe that they have taken action to remove groups on Telegram just this summer. In the UK, where I'm based, we saw essentially race riots occurring. Far-right extremists who were deeply unhappy with their lot in the country took to the streets over the course of about a week and a half earlier this summer and caused havoc. And large parts of the communication and organisation around those riots was transacted on Telegram. When I started to look into that group and other journalists started to look into that group, we started bombarding Telegram's press office with requests for why that group wasn't being taken down. And then suddenly, a day or so later, it disappeared. Came up after a little while with a different name, and people just migrated there. But it was an indication, at least, that maybe Telegram does realise sometimes when

authorities start to breathe down its neck and also when press intrusion starts to become quite significant and they realise that there is an issue bubbling over here, they might be minded to take action. But it is interesting so far that they've chosen not to take action on some of the more serious allegations that the French authorities are alleging. This arrest and investigation into Telegram has really kick-started a debate about free speech on the internet and the costs that come with it. Durov seems to take an all-or-nothing approach. create backdoors on the app for Western intelligence agencies, say to track ISIS, without also compromising the security of pro-democracy activists in authoritarian countries?

Or in other words, like providing privacy protections for some means providing them for all, whether terrorists or activists. Do you think that's true? Is there no in-between space for the app i think it's a question that every app is wrestling with and none of them seem to have come up with a good answer which doesn't mean that doer of is correct it just perhaps means that those in charge of these apps haven't necessarily put enough thought into it. I find it really hard to believe that it's not doable in some shape or form. I think that the challenge here is that platforms don't make money from deciding on these tough moral choices. And so far, the regulatory winds have actually blown in their favour. They're not losing money either from not taking action on this stuff,

at least not to date. That might well change with some of the European actions and the potentials for very, very large fines, up to a large percentage of the company's entire global revenue, if they're found to have infringed these things. But I think that the impetus just isn't there. I don't think it's necessarily that it's not possible. It's just that there's no need to think about it because so far enforcement of these sorts of rules has been relatively toothless. Chris, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us today.

Thank you. That's all for today. I'm Jonathan Mumpetze. Thanks for listening to FrontBurner. I'll talk to you tomorrow.