When French authorities arrested Telegram founder Pavel Durov after his tried assembly with Vladimir Putin, conspiracy theories unfold like wildfire.
Andrew Tate was early to spin the information in his favor, writing on X (previously Twitter), “The proprietor of Telegram, Pavel Durov, has simply been arrested in France for failing to censor the reality on his utility.
“Potential charges include support for terrorism, drug trafficking, complicity in crimes, mass fraud, money laundering, concealment, pedophile content, sanctions evasion, and more.”
Others quickly re-posted his non-falsifiable canine whistle, incomes it thousands and thousands of impressions and a whole bunch of 1000’s of likes.
Mischaracterizations of Durov’s arrest proliferated.
Followers of Durov, casting the billionaire as a bulwark of privateness and free speech, instantly posited that authorities have been leveraging his arrest to coerce him to put in backdoors in Telegram for governmental screens.
In fact, this concept assumes that Durov had constantly protected the privateness of Telegram person information previous to his arrest, which is a topic of appreciable debate.
The Azerbaijan go to and Vladimir Putin
One other conspiracy concept concerning Durov’s arrest issues the timing of his flights to Azerbaijan and France. Proponents level to the truth that Vladimir Putin was in Azerbaijan similtaneously Durov. Kremlin-controlled media claims that Durov tried to rearrange a gathering with Putin which Putin reportedly declined.
Assuming the worst right here, theorists declare that Durov voluntarily selected to fly to France to flee Russian retaliation, figuring out that his inevitable arrest would offer bodily safety and purchase him time to plan his subsequent transfer. (Durov is a French citizen with a European Union passport and would favor European due course of to a Russian jail, these theorists declare.)
Learn extra: Telegram to promote TON beneath market, admits it might personal over 10% of provide
An offshoot of this concept proposes that European authorities arrested Durov to exert negotiation stress on Putin. The thought right here is that Western governments are presently utilizing their detention of Durov — who has traditionally cooperated with Putin, equivalent to on his compliant operation of VK, Durov’s Russian model of Fb — as leverage for geopolitical negotiation with Putin.
For his half, French President Emmanuel Macron claimed that Durov’s arrest wasn’t political. As a substitute, he assures the general public that the arrest narrowly pertains to an impartial investigation involving 12 alleged prison violations.
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