Last week, CEO of Telegram Pavel Durov landed in France and was immediately detained. The details of his arrest are still emerging; he is being charged for being complicit in illegal activities happening on the platform, including the spread of CSAM.

Durov’s lawyer has referred to these charges as “absurd” — because the head of a social media company cannot be held responsible for criminal activity on the platform. That might be true in the US but does that hold up in France?

This week Alix is joined by Mallory Knodel to talk us through what happened:

• What are the implications of France making this move, and why now?
• How has Telegram positioned themselves as the most safe and secure messaging platform when they don’t even use the same encryption standards as WhatsApp?
• How Telegram has managed to get away with being uncooperative with various governments — or have they?

Mallory Knodel is The Center for Democracy & Technology’s Chief Technology Officer. She is also a co-chair of the Human Rights and Protocol Considerations research group of the Internet Research Task Force and a chairing advisor on cybersecurity and AI to the Freedom Online Coalition.