Pavel Durov would rather die than permit any third party access to private Telegram messages. He has maintained that no backdoor access exists and framed data privacy as paramount. French authorities detained him in August 2024 for four days and charged him with six crimes, including alleged complicity in distribution of child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking. Prosecutors argued he allowed illegal activity to flourish while refusing cooperation; Durov denies the criminal charges and calls the arrest legally and logically absurd. He shared a four-part thread marking the anniversary of his detention and maintains the investigation lacks evidence of wrongdoing.
For Pavel Durov, data privacy is a matter of life and death. The founder and CEO of the messaging and social media app Telegram outlined his stance in a post on X on Sunday. "I'd rather die - no third party has access to private messages on Telegram," the Russian-born entrepreneur wrote in response to a comment that suggested he gave French authorities "backdoor" access to Telegram data.
Durov became a symbol of the struggle over user data privacy between social media companies and national governments after he was arrested by French authorities one year ago, in August 2024. The CEO was detained for four days and accused of being complicit in allowing criminal activity to occur on Telegram. He has denied all the criminal charges laid against him. Durov shared a four-part thread about the ongoing case on X on Sunday, the anniversary of his arrest.
French prosecutors charged Durov in late August 2024 with six crimes, including "complicity" in the distribution of child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking, arguing that he allowed illegal activity to flourish on Telegram while refusing to cooperate with authorities. Durov said on X that the investigation against him "is still struggling to find anything that I or Telegram did wrong."
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