Pavel Durov could be indicted in the morning.
    Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is reportedly in custody after being arrested near Paris Saturday evening as he was departing his private jet. The billionaire was apprehended on a warrant related to a preliminary investigation, writes Reuters. French authorities believe that the platform’s lack of moderation has “allowed criminal activity to go on undeterred on the messaging app.” Durov will go before a judge tonight and could be indicted as early as Sunday, according to sources for TF1 TV (which we read using Google Translate), one of two French outlets cited by Reuters.

Telegram has become a critical resource as people turn to it to find crucial information in places where heavy information censorship is common, such as Russia. But Durov’s…

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    • gfle@szmer.infoEnglish
      3·
      2 months ago

      They aren’t, Telegram is not a secure messenger. There are e2e chats, but those are not groupchats, they are not always available (not on the desktop or using the web client) and in general they are rarely used. All those big groups and channels are unencrypted and there’s nothing stopping the authors from looking into them.

      • sleen@lemmy.zipEnglish
        4·
        2 months ago

        Agreed, there is a reason why there’s so much news about telegram. It’s ain’t known for its encryption, and it continues to baffle me why people continue to use it for problematic stuff.

        • gfle@szmer.infoEnglish
          3·
          2 months ago

          I saw the following comment on the orange site:

          Telegram offers end-to-end encryption in the same way that McDonalds offers salads.

          and I really like that take