Telegram has been talking about a stock market flotation for years. Russia’s Vedomosti reported as far back as 2021 that an IPO would come in 2023—it didn’t, but CEO Pavel Durov has again been banging the IPO drum for the past several months, arguing that Telegram is nearing both profitability and a billion users.
Throughout this revived hype, I’ve been wondering: “What about the crime?” Every social network and messaging app (Telegram is both) has issues with illegal content, but Telegram’s are over the top. As most users who have tapped “find people nearby” can tell you, it’s a wretched hive of scum and villainy—drugs, sex, weaponry, and stolen data are all on offer, to say nothing of the hitmen and terrorists.
Telegram, headquartered in Dubai, has plenty of legitimate uses and is a valuable and rare outlet for free speech in totalitarian places like Russia. But many of the services advertised on it are reprehensible and illegal in any jurisdiction. And this is a sound investment why?
Now Telegram’s IPO is looking as distant as ever, following Durov’s arrest in France late Saturday. A French child protection agency called Ofmin issued the arrest warrant and its secretary-general, Jean-Michel Bernigaud, said on LinkedIn that the core issue was “the lack of moderation and cooperation of the platform…particularly in the fight against pedophilia.” French media also reports that Telegram is suspected of effective complicity in drug trafficking, fraud, organized crime, online harassment, and the promotion of terrorism, by virtue of not doing enough to drive these activities off Telegram.
Telegram says Russia-born Durov has nothing to hide, and its “moderation is within industry standards.” It added: “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.” At the time of writing on Monday, Durov was still in questioning; he can be held for up to 96 hours before being either charged or freed.
Elon Musk, Edward Snowden, and others have taken the stance that Durov is being targeted for protecting free speech. “POV: It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme,” tweeted Musk. “I am surprised and deeply saddened that [French President Emmanuel] Macron has descended to the level of taking hostages as a means for gaining access to private communications,” Snowden wrote from Russia.
Whether these hot takes are useful will become clearer once we know more about the specific allegations. If the French authorities are going after Durov because they want to undermine the strong encryption on Telegram’s secret messages, that would indeed be a bad thing that sets dangerous precedents.
However, the illegal services on Telegram are not hidden. A prospective cocaine buyer will initiate an encrypted secret chat to communicate with a dealer, but only after the dealer has advertised those wares openly. Users can report illegal posts to the company, but—judging by the “nearby groups” that I’m seeing here in Berlin—there’s often nothing but illegal posts on display. It’s like the dark web, but not dark.
Telegram’s statement on the arrest specifically referred to its claimed compliance with the EU’s new Digital Services Act, which covers online content. Now, Telegram is not classified as a “very large online platform” under the DSA, which means it doesn’t have to abide by the law’s toughest rules around transparency and accountability. (Musk’s X does have this classification and faces DSA charges over these issues.) But the DSA does still oblige Telegram to tackle illegal content when made aware of it.
But that said, Durov was not arrested for violating the DSA. “The arrest was conducted under French criminal law,” a European Commission spokesperson told me. “Criminal prosecution is not among the potential sanctions for a breach of the DSA. The DSA does not define what is illegal nor does it establish any criminal offence and can therefore not be invoked for arrests. Only national [or international] laws that define a criminal offence can be invoked.”
There’s a lot we still don’t know about this case. But whatever the specifics, it’s probably safe to say that you won’t be adding Telegram shares to your portfolio anytime soon.
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David Meyer
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