App that doesn’t require users’ emails or phone numbers secured over $1m in funding with help from Jack Dorsey Some far-right extremists have fled Telegram for a new haven: SimpleX, a messaging service that just secured over $1m in funding with the help of Jack Dorsey, once the CEO of Twitter, now known as X. The migration from Telegram began after the app’s founder and chief executive, Pavel Durov, announced a crackdown on illegal content and cooperation with law enforcement requests. Just weeks ago, Durov was arrested in France on a litany of charges that allege Telegram helped spread child sexual abuse material and fuelled criminal activities among its users. Continue reading...

Platform with millions of subscribers discloses a more proactive approach to reporting infringers to authorities Telegram founder and chief executive Pavel Durov said Monday that the messaging platform had removed more “problematic content” and would take a more proactive approach to complying with government requests. The announcement comes weeks after his arrest in France on charges of failing to act against criminals using the app. Telegram’s search feature “has been abused by people who violated our terms of service to sell illegal goods”, Durov told the 13 million subscribers of his personal messaging channel. Continue reading...

National police agency says it is investigating 513 cases of deepfake pornography as a new scandal grips the country The anger was palpable. For the second time in just a few years, South Korean women took to the streets of Seoul to demand an end to sexual abuse. When the country spearheaded Asia’s #MeToo movement, the culprit was molka – spy cams used to record women without their knowledge. Now their fury was directed at an epidemic of deepfake pornography. For Juhee Jin, 26, a Seoul resident who advocates for women’s rights, the emergence of this new menace, in which women and girls are again the targets, was depressingly predictable. “This should have been addressed a long time ago,” says Jin, a translator. “I hope that authorities take precautions and provide proper education so that people can prevent these crimes from happening.” Continue reading...

The detainment of the murky messaging service’s founder in France shows online moguls can no longer act with impunity On 24 August, a Russian tech billionaire’s private jet landed at Le Bourget airport, north-east of Paris, to find that officers of the French judicial police were waiting for him. He was duly arrested and whisked away for interrogation. Four days later he was indicted on 12 charges, including alleged complicity in the distribution of child exploitation material and drug trafficking, barred from leaving France and placed under “judicial supervision”, which requires him to check in with the gendarmes twice a week until further notice. The mogul in question, Pavel Durov, is a tech entrepreneur who collects nationalities the way others collect air miles. In fact it turns out that one of his citizenships is French, generously provided in 2021 by France’s president, Emmanuel Macron. Durov is also, it seems, a fitness fanatic with a punishing daily regime. “After eight hours of tracked sleep,” the Financial Times reports, “he starts the day ‘without exception’ with 200 push-ups, 100 sit-ups and an ice bath. He does not drink, smoke, eat sugar or meat, and saves time for meditation.” When not engaged in these demanding activities, he has also found time to father more than 100 kids as a sperm donor and to rival Elon Musk as a free-speech extremist. Continue reading...

Pavel Durov said the feature – which has had issues with bots and scammers – would be replaced The chief executive of Telegram, Pavel Durov, has announced the messaging app will improve moderation on the platform and has removed some features that have been used for illegal activity. The app’s founder unveiled the changes on Friday hours after calling his arrest by the French authorities last month “misguided”. Durov has since been charged with allegedly allowing criminal activity on the app. Continue reading...

Russian-born billionaire detained last month in France denies app is ‘anarchic paradise’ The founder of the Telegram messaging app, Pavel Durov, under investigation in France, has said that French authorities should have approached his company with their complaints rather than detaining him, calling the arrest ‘“misguided”. Durov, writing on his Telegram channel early on Friday in his first public comments since his detention last month, denied any suggestion the app was an “anarchic paradise”. Continue reading...

Pavel Durov will probably use French legal disputes to position himself as a champion of free speech, say observers When Pavel Durov came under criticism from Russian regulators over the spread of pornography on the VKontakte social media platform he founded, the tech entrepreneur responded mockingly by changing his Twitter handle from “VK CEO” to “Porn King”. More than a decade later, Durov’s anti-authoritarian stance and hands-off approach to moderation have landed him in more serious trouble. Continue reading...

On Saturday 24 April, the billionaire founder of the Telegram social media and messaging app, Pavel Durov, was arrested by French authorities as he disembarked from his private jet in Paris on his way from Azerbaijan. Officials said the arrest was part of a cybercrime inquiry into criminal activity on the platform and a lack of cooperation with law enforcement. Durov has since been formally charged.  Durov, also known as the 'Russian Mark Zuckerberg' for having founded a similar platform to Zuckerberg’s Facebook in Russia called VKontakte, is a self-styled champion of free speech and has cultivated a reputation for being unwilling to work with authorities to censor and more closely control what happens on his platform. But his arrest has raised important questions about the extent to which tech executives are responsible for how users employ their social media networks. Chris Stokel-Walker, a technology journalist, explains the implications of Durov's arrest for the tech sector * Telegram CEO charged in France for ‘allowing criminal activity’ on messaging app * What the Telegram founder’s arrest means for the regulation of social media firms Continue reading...

Pavel Durov, who has French citizenship, faces prosecution over alleged failure to suppress spread of sexual images of children and calls for violence The head of Telegram, Pavel Durov, has been charged by the French judiciary for allegedly allowing criminal activity on the messaging app but avoided jail with a €5m bail. The Russian-born multi-billionaire, who has French citizenship, was granted release on condition that he report to a police station twice a week and remain in France, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement. Continue reading...