The Russian tech mogul has accused Paris of a broader crackdown on digital privacy and media freedom
Pavel Durov © AOP.Press / Corbis via Getty Images
[RT] Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov has condemned France, saying it is “not a free country” after a raid on Elon Musk's X offices in Paris.
The
search was part of a probe into the social media platform’s Grok AI and
its alleged generation of sexualized deepfake images of women and
children, and comes amid a broader crackdown on X across the EU.
“French police is currently raiding X’s office in Paris. France is the only country in the world that is criminally persecuting all social networks that give people some degree of freedom (Telegram, X, TikTok…),” Durov wrote on X on Tuesday.
Don’t be mistaken: this is not a free country.
According
to the Paris prosecutor’s office, the raid on the X offices was carried
out in cooperation with French cybercrime authorities and Europol, as
part of an investigation launched last month.
The authorities are
investigating a long list of alleged offenses, including the possession
and organized distribution of child pornography, the creation of
sexualized deepfakes, the spread of Holocaust denial content, and
fraudulent data gathering, the prosecutor’s office said in a press
release on Tuesday.
Musk and former X CEO Linda Yaccarino have been summoned to Paris for “voluntary interviews” in April, the press release said.
X has also faced scrutiny in the broader EU and in the UK.
Last
month, the European Commission and British telecommunications watchdog
Ofcom announced they were investigating the platform after a recent
integration of its chatbot Grok allowed users to generate sexualized
deepfake images, including of minors.
The probes followed a €150
million ($177 million) fine the commission issued X in December for
breaching transparency obligations under digital regulations.
According to Durov, the probes are part of a broader push by the EU to beat into line those social media platforms “that refuse to silently censor free speech.”
The
Russian-born tech mogul was arrested in Paris in 2024 over allegations
that Telegram had failed to deter criminal activity on the platform.
Durov has maintained that his detention was politically motivated, and
accused French authorities of attempting to force him to use his
platform to curb “conservative voices” ahead of the election in Romania.