Telegram CEO’s arrest: What it could mean for US companies

The detention and indictment of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has brought the debate over online privacy and free speech into the spotlight, with some experts questioning if the arrest is a signal of what’s to come for U.S. tech firms and their leaders.

Durov, a dual citizen of France and Russia, faces a total of six charges and is accused of “complicity” in the distribution of child sexual abuse materials, illicit transactions, money laundering and drug trafficking allegedly taking place on the messaging app, according to a translated version of the Paris prosecutor’s office statement.

He spent days in police custody for questioning and was released Wednesday morning ahead of his court appearance, where he was formally indicted. He was released from custody and placed under judicial supervision after posting €5 million for bail.

The arrest followed a judicial investigation opened last month into an unnamed individual suspected of “complicity” in illegal transactions, possession and distribution of child sexual abuse materials, possession and sale of narcotics, and organized fraud, among other charges.  

Critics of Durov’s arrest linked it to concerns over free speech and the privacy of users’ content.  

Tech billionaire Elon Musk — who throttled content moderation on X after purchasing the social media platform in 2022 — voiced his support for Pavel this week. Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski also claimed France “crossed a red line” by arresting Durov for not censoring free speech. 

Telegram cannot be directly compared to many U.S. social media platforms due to differences in security protocols, experts said.

Even so, Durov’s arrest still raises potential concerns for U.S. tech companies operating abroad as European countries ramp up regulations.   

“I think it’s certainly of concern to U.S. tech companies, U.S. founders, anybody thinking about starting a tech business in France,” Will Duffield, an adjunct fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, told The Hill.  

“The lack of process here, or seeming lack of process, should be most concerning.” 

Telegram offers users the option to send messages with end-to-end encryption, along with large group chats with as many as 200,000 users. Meta’s WhatsApp has a maximum of 1,024 users.

“Given that they’re willing to take this step with a company like Telegram, I think it implies something about the direct message feature of all the social media companies,” University of Florida law professor Jane Bambauer told The Hill.

Duffield said before the indictment that U.S. companies should be “very worried” if Durov’s charges are related to the encryption of content, but less concerned if they center on Telegram’s alleged refusal to hand over information or documents requested by authorities. 

“France is ostensibly the first-world-developed country with a strong tradition of the rule of law. And yet something that looks like it would have been handled as a civil matter by sending summons, issuing subpoenas, potentially imposing fines, instead is being handled by grabbing the CEO of a company as he steps off his flight,” he said.

Nonetheless, it indicates a conflict between American and European values around speech and the privacy of users’ content is slowly rearing its head, Duffield and Bambauer said.  

The European Union has already opened several investigations under the Digital Services Act (DSA), a wide-ranging set of tech regulations that went into effect earlier this year. The DSA is meant to curb the power of major tech companies and protect Europeans from privacy breaches and abusive content.

Despite bipartisan support in the U.S. for greater tech regulation, the federal government has yet to make major changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which broadly protects social media platforms from being sued over material posted by users. 

“Some Europeans — especially European regulators, especially empowered by the Digital Services Act — have adopted a kind of bullying attitude of late towards American tech firms, the idea that there’s a new sheriff in town or something, and there hasn’t been a great deal of pushback from the United States,” Duffield said. 

The differences between the two regulatory acts show “a big distinction on the ground floor, right at the foundation,” Bambauer said.

Retired Army. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman caught attention over the weekend when he suggested Musk should be worried, given Durov’s arrest.  

“While Durov holds French citizenship, is arrested for violating French law, this has broader implications for other social media, including Twitter,” he wrote on X. “There’s a growing intolerance for platforming [disinformation] & malign influence & a growing appetite for accountability. Musk should be nervous.” 

While he does not believe the two tech leaders are directly comparable at this point, Vindman told The Hill the arrest shows “an increasing appetite for accountability.”  

“It doesn’t really necessarily translate over to actions that the U.S. could take, or it will take, because, again, we have a different view on free speech,” he said. “The U.S. kind of took it as an attack on free speech, but I was mainly alluding to the fact that I think the Europeans are going to be increasingly assertive in dealing with platforms that consider themselves only platforms and have no interest in moderating content.” 

Jared Carter, a professor at Vermont Law and Graduate School, pushed back on the free speech argument when it comes to Telegram’s alleged refusal to give materials to authorities, adding the U.S. Constitution does not apply in France.  

“I don’t think the First Amendment law becomes into play, because as long as there’s a duly issued subpoena or warrant to search the company’s files that’s been legally executed, the First Amendment doesn’t protect a business owner or a business from having to comply with an otherwise legal subpoena or search for it,” he said.

Updated at 4:45 p.m.