Telegram App Founder Arrested

French authorities have taken the founder and chief executive of Telegram into custody on charges related to the dissemination of content on the online platform. Pavel Durov was detained after landing Saturday night in a private jet at the Bourget airport outside Paris. The arrest warrant was issued as part of an inquiry into allegations of fraud, drug trafficking, organized crime, promotion of terrorism, and cyberbullying, the Guardian reports. "This is a monstrous attack on freedom of speech worldwide," said a former press secretary to Durov, per the New York Times. "Enough of Telegram's impunity," said a French investigator.

Durov, who lives in Dubai and is a dual citizen of the United Arab Emirates and France, is accused of failing to curb the criminal use of Telegram. Started in 2013, Telegram has more than 900 million users and is a major source of slanted information on Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Russian officials said Sunday that they're trying to get information about Durov's arrest, and gain access to him, but that France isn't cooperating. The billionaire left Russia in 2014 after the government demanded Durov block opposition groups on another social network he founded. It's not publicly known whether he has renounced his Russian citizenship; France has said it considers his French citizenship the primary one.

Telegram was much like other social messaging apps when it was launched. Now, global law enforcement agencies monitor the platform because of its use in organizing and recruiting by terrorist organizations, drug runners, far-right extremist groups, and weapons dealers. The VSquare investigative news site, per the Guardian, describes Telegram as the "'go-to' tool for Russian propagandists, both leftwing and rightwing radicals, American QAnon and conspiracy theorists," saying it's an "ecosystem for the radicalization of opinion." The AFP reported that Durov will appear in court soon, and French officials said they'll issue a statement about the arrest on Monday. (More France stories.)