The creator of Telegram was arrested in France.

But the official story is full of holes.

The narrative is that "his girlfriend's posts" gave away his location.

What if we told you that, in reality, he "turned himself in"?

Pavel Durov was arrested on Saturday night (24th) as soon as his private jet landed in Paris.

Supposedly, it was because Telegram didn't comply with moderation requests from European authorities.

But the truth is that Durov knew he was being prosecuted there. He has a French passport.

You know how? Macron gave it to him.

Durov flew to Paris directly from Baku, Azerbaijan.

A few days earlier, he had a secret meeting scheduled with Vladimir Putin... but the president stood him up.

Notice that the relationship between the two is rocky.

The second most famous Russian in the world is somewhat at odds with the first.

In 2014, Durov sold his first company—a "Russian Orkut"—because he refused to follow Putin's orders to hand over information on Ukrainian users.

He fled the country and realized he was being wiretapped: the government was monitoring him even when he spoke with his brother.

That's when the idea came to him:

...to create a messaging app where even he couldn't spy on his users' conversations, even if he wanted to.

However, despite this rhetoric, Telegram is much more vulnerable to surveillance than Signal, or even WhatsApp, both of which use end-to-end encryption by default.

On Telegram, your messages are stored on the company's servers in an unencrypted form. Any sufficiently threatening government could get access to them 👀

And, it seems, they already have.

Check this out:

In 2018, Telegram was banned in Russia. In 2020, it was abruptly unbanned.

In 2020, Durov was feeling the pressure. He had been funding the business out of his own pocket for years.

He was planning to launch a cryptocurrency, but the SEC sued him just before the launch.

He needed help.

Russia represented 10% of his user base.

So, he didn't hesitate... 👇

It seems that Durov made some sort of "deal" with the Kremlin.

The ban was lifted.

Putin's defense forces even began using the app as a communication channel for the military.

Hit the star ⭐

This is not a jab against Telegram hitting them when they are at their lows despite what a disappointing amount of users on Twitter have reacted to this with. All of us are GrapheneOS have used it in some way. However, it's founder being arrested is a very important time to remind people that because messages are not end-to-end encrypted except in a very specific circumstance, many users and average people are at risk. Telegram has almost a billion users and many do not understand this concept. If you hold something sensitive on Telegram and it's not encrypted, you MUST take appropriate action. This is a PSA to our users who use Telegram because we care about the safety of our users and community. The climate surrounding Telegram is moving towards being hostile, so talking about this is more important than ever.

There are many messengers not just Signal that are safer than Telegram simply because end to end encryption is mandatory. Signal is mentioned here because they are an unfortunate subject of Telegram's marketing campaigns. Influencers taking jabs at Signal when they are proven to only be able to provide only a timestamp of when an account was registered and last used in court is simply throwing stones from a glass house. Both require phone numbers yet Telegram gives away far more information about you.

Encryption and preventing access to metadata doesn't just protect users, it protects developers. You cannot be compelled to give away what you cannot access and you cannot be accountable to protect against what you aren't able to moderate. Develop unstoppable software that can survive without you.