Pavel Durov lashes out over police raids on X offices in Paris

Don’t make the mistake of taking France as a free country, Telegram founder Pavel Durov advised followers on X after police raided the offices of the social media platform in Paris.

Durov’s reaction to the assault of French authorities, who also want to question X owner Elon Musk, comes as no surprise, as the Russian himself faces pressure over content published through his privacy-oriented messenger.

Durov accuses France of suppressing free social media

Telegram’s owner and chief executive, Pavel Durov, has spoken in defense of social media platforms that provide users with a level of free expression.

Durov’s comments on X were prompted by a French law enforcement raid on the local office of the social networking service X, formerly known as Twitter.

The Russian-born tech entrepreneur lashed out at France for going after the microblogging platform, his popular messenger, and the short-form video app TikTok, which “give people some degree of freedom,” as he put it.

“Don’t be mistaken: this is not a free country,” Durov insisted in a tweet reprehending the European nation, which has targeted him and his company, too.

Durov was reacting to the news that the French headquarters of X have been searched by prosecutors and police officers, aided by representatives of Europol.

The operation, announced by the Paris Prosecutor’s Office, is part of a probe over a number of alleged offenses, including the spreading of far-right content and sexual abuse material.

French authorities blame some of the crimes on the AI-powered chatbot Grok, developed by another of Musk’s companies, xAI, which functions on the X platform.

Investigators say a “spicy mode” of the assistant is responsible for producing tens of thousands of sexualized deepfake images of women and children.

Meanwhile, the prosecutors summoned the American billionaire and the former CEO of X, Linda Yaccarino, for what they described as “voluntary interviews” on April 20.

Other suspected crimes include “fraudulent extraction of data,” falsification” and “operating of an illegal online platform,” all committed by an “organized group,” as well as “denial of crimes against humanity.”

In a comment to his original post, Pavel Durov added:

Durov and Musk find themselves in the same French boat

Pavel Durov has faced his own set of similar accusations in France, including complicity in criminal activity by managing a messaging app that allowed the sharing of illegal content, such as child pornography, and facilitated illicit transactions.

The 41-year-old Russian, who also holds a French passport, was arrested in August 2024 and spent time in detention. While he was eventually released, Durov was questioned again last summer as part of the ongoing investigation.

He has repeatedly rejected the allegations, maintaining Telegram was never intended for illicit use, while at the same time acknowledging growing criminal activity on the platform and agreeing to strengthen moderation.

In an interview for Lex Fridman’s podcast last fall, Durov revealed that Paris pushed him to shut down or censor Telegram channels during the presidential elections in Romania and Moldova, in exchange for favorable treatment in his legal case in France.

Besides their defense of online freedom, for which both may have found themselves pressed by the French state, Pavel Durov and Elon Musk seem to be on the same page on other issues as well.

Privacy is one such example. Durov’s comments on the Paris raids against X come just days after Elon Musk backed his assessment that WhatsApp is not a secure messenger. The owner of the latter, Meta Platforms, was sued by users challenging the claim that its chats are private.

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