How Telegram's Founder Pavel Durov Became a Culture War Martyr.

The last weekend of August saw Pavel Durov as the protagonist of a rather surprising event, which subsequently shook the entire Internet landscape. The founder of the messaging application Telegram was seized and detained by the French authorities.

According to a subsequent press release from the Paris Judicial Court, the reason for the arrest lay in a preliminary investigation dating back to the beginning of July: the man was accused of allowing illegal transactions, of not cooperating with the authorities, of complicity in the possession and dissemination of child pornography, and various other crimes.

The affair quickly turned into an unexpected political issue, however, mainly from an american perspective. The US Conservative Party has recently encouraged the use of Telegram. As a result, some conservatives see the arrest of its founder as a crackdown on the American right and, potentially, as a political incursion against the Russian government, a famous user of the platform.