Did Telegram founder Durov pay for his meeting with Putin? | Technology
During his life, Pavel Durov faced many moments where he was a star on the global journalism and technology stage, because his platform “Telegram“Recently breaking the barrier of 900 million active users, as well as Durov has come into the spotlight due to his personal life.
But all these moments faded before the moment of his arrest by the French authorities, as the world was surprised when he was arrested at the French airport of Le Bourget, accused of contributing to the promotion of child pornography.
Durov has overnight become a controversial figure in various parts of the world, among those who see him as a martyr for freedom of expression and those who see him as a beneficiary of making his fortune to facilitate the work of criminals in the digital world. , and this and that include the real Pavel Durov, so who is he?
His talent from childhood
Pavel Durov was born to Russian parents in the Soviet Union in 1984. When he decided to move to Italy at the age of 4, he received an offer from his father to work for a university professor at the University of St. Petersburg.
Pavel and his older brother, Nikolai, shared a love of mathematics and intelligence from an early age, the older brother, participating in a competition to solve cubic equations three years in a row, from 1996 to 1998. As for Pavel, he was an ideal student at his university for several years in a row.
Pavel and Nikolai became involved in programming at a very young age, thanks to their acquisition of an IBM XT computer after returning from Italy in the early 1990s, which meant that they were one of the few families in Russia who had access to a personal computer. Earlier this year, according to a statement by Pavel during a rare interview with the famous broadcaster Tucker Carlson.
In 2006, when Durov was 21 years old, he managed to create a social media platform called “Vkontakte”, which earned him the nickname “Zuckerberg of Russia”. .
A challenge to the authorities from the beginning
The VK network was founded in 2006, a full 8 years before the establishment of the Telegram platform, but Durov’s conflict with the authorities began since then, as he refused direct requests from the Kremlin to access user data. Protests against pro-Russian Ukrainian president.
Durov described his experience with the establishment of the platform and the confrontation with the Russian authorities as an experience that taught him a lot, because at that time he was not looking for wealth, but his main goal was to provide a platform that allows users to speak. freely
It sold all of its shares after giving up its stake in the platform and resigning as CEO and leaving the country altogether, and is now headed by VK Platform, which is highly loyal to the Russian authorities, and while Durov is in the eyes of the Russian authorities, his mistake in founding the platform Realised, he quickly decided to move his company’s headquarters to Dubai’s Media City in 2017, settling there until he obtained Emirati citizenship in February 2021.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pavel Durov were found separately in Azerbaijan at the same time (French)
Privacy is first
Since the beginning of Durov’s conflict with the Russian authorities, he has raised the banner of personal freedom and privacy protection, so he came out in 2015, just one year after the launch of Telegram, saying that all social media platforms and instant messaging are bad because they all monitor their users. leaves a backdoor for, with the TechCrunch website.
In another interview with CNN, Durov confirmed that Telegram is the most secure instant messaging platform in the world, and the management of the platform does not want to open the back door for any government in the world because it is inconsistent with their policies.
For this exact reason, the administration of the platform has refused to reveal its encryption algorithm to date, which is used continuously and permanently with all messages, and despite the fact that Telegram uses a two-party encryption algorithm like WhatsApp, the latter algorithm is available for access. and try
This trend prompted Russian authorities to try to ban the application in 2018, despite Durov’s desperate efforts to counter the ban. In 2020, he managed to lift the ban and make the platform available again, making it one of the few global social media platforms operating without restrictions in Russia.
Durov and the secret agreement between Putin?
The unblocking of Telegram in 2020 came as a surprise to the whole world, as Pavel Durov repeatedly emphasized that he was directly hostile to the Russian government and would not give it access to his platform’s algorithms. So, fingers are crossed straight to Durov saying he has struck a deal with the Kremlin to make the platform available within Russian borders.
Of course, Durov tried hard to deny these accusations, and in many interviews he mentioned his conflict with the Russian government, but this was not enough to avoid the accusations against him, and what contributed to strengthening these accusations was that Durov and Putin were at the same time within the border of Azerbaijan. presence
This was several days before Durov’s arrest, as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pavel Durov were found separately in Azerbaijan at the same time, and despite assurances from both sides that they would not meet, Russian authorities rushed to take the necessary measures immediately. Durov’s arrest.
Currently, France has issued an arrest warrant for the platform’s co-founder Nikolai Durov on the same charges, and although Telegram’s content moderation policy has been a cause of great concern for Western authorities in recent years, France’s action may now be against the two brothers. There is more to this than just efforts to curb child trafficking, and the issue may be related to the protests that began in 2015, in which the platform played a key role.