The arrest of Pavel Durov raises awkward questions

Pavel Durov, Russian-born founder of the Telegram messaging and social media app, has been arrested in France for failing to comply with official demands to regulate content posted by users on his app. According to a warrant issued by France’s Ofmin – an office tasked with preventing violence against minors – Durov’s alleged offences include abetting fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, organised crime, child pornography and the promotion of terrorism.

The arrest of the 39-year-old Durov – a French, Saint Kitts and Nevis and United Arab Emirates citizen – is set to become a battle royal between advocates of free speech and those who seek to regulate it. Elon Musk, owner of Twitter, has been among the first to rush to Durov’s defence, tweeting ‘Liberte. Liberte! Liberte?’ as the news broke. Musk also asked why Mark Zuckerberg has not been arrested over the use of Instagram by pedophiles – and answered his own question with the claim that ‘Instagram has a massive child exploitation problem, but no arrest for Zuck, as he censors free speech and gives governments backdoor access to user data… he already caved into censorship pressure.’

To many free speech advocates, the arrest of Durov for hosting a platform on which unacceptable things are said feels like a very 20th century solution to a 21st century problem.