If any one person embodies both the miracles and maladies of our digital age, it is probably Pavel Durov, the Russia-born founder of the Telegram messaging app who was detained in Paris on Saturday. To his supporters, Durov is a hero for creating a safe space for free speech. To his detractors, he is a villain for abetting criminal activity. In truth, he may be both.
Before rushing to judgment, it is worth considering Durov’s personal history. When I interviewed him in 2015, two years after Telegram’s launch, Durov told me about his family’s tragic past. Under Stalin, several members of his family, from Kyiv and Saint Petersburg, had been persecuted, deported to Siberia or shot. Durov drew no distinction between Hitler, who repressed ethnic minorities, and Stalin, who repressed social classes. He said he hated both equally, putting him at odds with the increasingly nationalistic regime of President Vladimir Putin.
VKontakte, the wildly popular Facebook-like social networking service Durov created with his brother, hosted opposition groups to the Kremlin. But in 2014 he was forced to sell his company to Kremlin-linked investors and quit the country. He counted himself lucky to escape the fate of his predecessors and emerge with $300mn. With those proceeds, he developed Telegram with the explicit goal of evading the intrusions of big government and providing “a social good”.