General
Thursday Briefing
Multiple charges for the Telegram founder.
Pavel Durov in 2014.Credit…Jim Wilson/The New York Times
The Telegram founder was charged with multiple crimes
Pavel Durov, the Russian-born entrepreneur who founded the online communications tool Telegram, was charged yesterday in France with a wide range of crimes and barred from leaving the country. The Paris prosecutor said that Durov was released from custody, but had been ordered to pay bail of five million euros, or about $5.5 million.
Durov was charged with complicity in managing an online platform to enable illegal transactions by an organized group, as well as with complicity in crimes such as enabling the distribution of child sexual abuse material, fraud and drug trafficking.
His indictment was a rare move by legal authorities to hold a top tech executive personally liable for the behavior of users on a major messaging platform. Telegram has played a role in multiple criminal cases in France.
Analysis: Durov’s case has intensified a long-simmering debate about free speech on the internet and the responsibility of tech companies to monitor what their users say and do on their platforms.