The messaging app
Telegram has questioned the grounds for the detention of its CEO
Pavel Durov, who was taken into custody at in Paris airport over
the weekend. Our tech reporter Annabelle Droulers joins
us now. So
what exactly has happened? Because there's obviously some rules in
terms of how long he can be detained for that can be rolled over.
Have we heard about what the underlying sort of allegations might be?
Yeah, well, we actually have seen that detention already rolled over, which
means that it could be facing court on Monday.
But just backtracking a little bit and talking about what happened over the
weekend. So.
Pavel Durov, he's someone who established Telegram back in 2013 with
his brother. He's Russian by birth, but we don't
actually know if he's given up that citizenship.
It does play into the story a little bit later on, but essentially it was
obtained leverage over the weekend, which is an airport on the outskirts of
Paris. All of this was first reported by the
AFP, but they're saying that there was suspicion that he failed to take steps
to prevent criminal use of telegram. Now Telegram as a messaging app, many
people would be familiar with it, but it has been often linked to extremist
activity online. It's seen as being quite light touch on
content moderation as well. And that's a way that this really
misinformation, for instance, can kind of spread like wildfire on it.
And so authorities are becoming much more aware of this now.
And we saw, for instance, the UK, for instance, talking about it
and its role in its prominence in those anti-immigrant riots back in August
earlier this month. Now, the French authorities apparently
as well taking notice here because the AFP says that of men, which is an agency
set up to combat violence against minors, they're the ones that are said
to have established this arrest warrant for Durov.
What have we heard from Telegram? Yeah, they actually put out a response
in the last couple of hours and kind of as you might expect, they're saying that
essentially that they abide by all of the laws in the EU, that they do
actually have high content moderation standards that are improving as well.
They do make note of that in their in their statement.
They are saying that the CEO has nothing to hide, that he travels across Europe
frequently and that they also you can see this response here, but they're also
awaiting a prompt resolution of the situation at Tone Coin, which is
actually a cryptocurrency linked to telegram, did slide pretty significantly
off the back of this, down more than 20%.
So there is a clear market reaction and nervousness around this as well.
So this has called global attention. Authorities are now involved.
So what's next year? Well, as Heidi was saying there before
that, we did see that arrest warrant extended.
And so it does mean that Durov could face the courts on Monday.
We are as well hearing from the Russian embassy in Paris.
And that's what I was saying before, drove is is Russian by birth, rather.
He does have citizenship in France, in the UAE.
Now, it's unclear whether he's renounced his Russian citizenship, but we are
still hearing from Russian officials and they're saying that they do want an
explanation for the reasons and also demanded that they ensure the protection
of his rights and provide consular access.
So certainly very much a moving story, but it does seem that we'll hear a lot
more perhaps later Monday if Durov does appear before the courts.