The head of Telegram, Pavel Durov, has been charged by the French judiciary for allegedly allowing criminal activity on the messaging app but avoided jail with a €5m bail.
The Russian-born multi-billionaire, who has French citizenship, was granted release on condition that he report to a police station twice a week and remain in France, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement.
The charges against Durov include complicity in the spread of sexual images of children and a litany of other alleged violations on the messaging app.
His surprise arrest has put a spotlight on the criminal liability of Telegram, the popular app with around 1 billion users, and has sparked debate over free speech and government censorship.
Telegram has no end to end encryption by default.
Wording is confusing. Here are some better takes that sound valid and are true:
Telegram’s e2ee is only available for chats of 2 people, and only on official mobile client.
Telegram’s e2ee is a feature you have to enable whenever you need it (called secret chats).
This is incorrect, it is also available in other mobile clients (at least those which are forks of the official one).