Profile | Who is Pavel Durov, Telegram founder dubbed the ‘Russian Zuckerberg’ arrested in France?
- Pavel Durov was detained at a Paris airport this weekend for alleged offences related to the messaging app
Russian-born tech entrepreneur Pavel Durov has founded wildly popular social networks as well as a cryptocurrency, amassed a multibillion-dollar fortune and locked horns with authorities not just in Russia but around the world.
While still in his 20s, the St Petersburg native shot to fame in Russia after founding the VKontakte (VK) social network which catered to the needs of Russian-language users and outgunned Facebook throughout the former USSR.
After disputes with the Russian authorities and ownership battles, he sold out of VKontakte and founded a new messaging service called Telegram which rapidly gained traction but has also proved controversial with critics condemning an alleged lack of control on extreme content.
As these dramas raged, Durov remained a mercurial and at times mysterious figure, rarely giving interviews and restricting himself to sometimes enigmatic declarations made on Telegram.
A self-avowed libertarian, Durov has championed confidentiality on the internet and encryption in messaging.
