The surprise arrest of Russian-born Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov after he stepped off his private jet in Paris on Saturday night has put the once-fringe social network in the spotlight like never before.
Durov’s arrest – following an investigation by the Paris prosecutor into organised crime, child sexual abuse images, fraud and money laundering on the platform – also raises the stakes for the European Union, which has adopted the world’s most ambitious laws to police the internet, notably the Digital Services Act (DSA). The DSA, which comes into force in November 2022, targets online platforms “too big to care about” – in the words of European Commissioner Thierry Breton – and requires internet companies to remove illegal content, protect children, tackle disinformation and other online harms.
The European Commission has stayed out of the French investigation into Durov. “This is a purely criminal investigation at national level, conducted by the French authorities… based on French criminal law,” a spokesman said. “It has nothing to do with the DSA.”
But the charges brought against the 39-year-old tech billionaire increase pressure on the Commission and Belgium, the member state responsible for regulating Telegram on behalf of the bloc. “If there is such a big problem with content moderation that it is actually criminally relevant … why has it not been addressed yet under the DSA?” said Jan Penfrat of the European Digital Rights Group (EDRi), a coalition of NGOs. “One possible answer is, of course, that the DSA is new… but it still creates a kind of pressure on the authorities.”
The hybrid messaging service and social network, which boasts user groups of up to 200,000 members, has worried European politicians for months. While Telegram has been a favorite of pro-democracy activists in Russia, Hong Kong and Iran, it has also become a haven for extremists, criminals, conspiracy theorists and pro-Kremlin propagandists. In Lithuania, police have created special units to monitor Telegram and other platforms in An attempt to stop drug traffickingwhile Dutch police told the country’s public broadcaster that they had had little cooperation from the platform after NOS journalists found 2.5 million messages offering drugs on the site in 2023.
Telegram, which is based in the United Arab Emirates, has grown to nearly a billion users worldwide despite being subject to limited regulation. But despite only having 41 million monthly active users in the EU, it now faces new demands under European law.
Enforcement could be a weak link in the chain. Belgium, along with five other EU member states, is subject to ongoing legal proceedings in the EU for failing to give powers to its “digital services coordinator,” the organization responsible for enforcing the DSA. While the Belgian government has tasked the Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications with enforcing the DSA, the agency lacks sufficient powers, meaning it cannot launch investigations into Telegram.
Telegram could, however, fall under the direct supervision of the EU executive. Until now it has not been subject to the stricter regulation that applies only to the largest platforms, such as Facebook’s Meta and X, formerly known as Twitter. Under EU law, only platforms with more than 45 million monthly active users are “large online platforms” (VLOPs), subject to the strictest requirements and direct oversight by the Commission.
Senior EU officials are not convinced by Telegram’s claim to be just below the threshold, with 41 million monthly active users in the EU. “Telegram is a problem,” said Vĕra Jourová, vice president of the European Commission. He told Bloomberg In May, he said: “We are now checking whether the figure is correct,” adding that “even smaller platforms can do very dangerous work in several member states,” referring to Telegram’s popularity in eastern EU countries with large Russian-speaking minorities.
The commission’s spokesperson said on Tuesday it was “carefully analysing” Telegram’s figures, adding: “Once we reach a clear conclusion, we will not hesitate, if they meet the threshold, to designate Telegram (as a VLOP).”
In addition to these ongoing discussions between the Commission and Telegram, the platform is due to publish its latest monthly user data in the EU later this month.
Telegram did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but following Durov’s arrest, the company said it “complies with EU laws, including the Digital Services Act.”
Digital activists say Telegram needs to be much more transparent. “An online platform of that importance with such a large user base, even if it is not officially designated as a VLOP, is too important to operate with that level of opacity,” Penfrat said at EDRi.
“The public needs to know what is going on and obviously regulators need to know in order to do their job.”