Word of the month: Durov

The old dissident saying about stylistic disagreements with Soviet power seems to apply under any regime. Take the recent detention of Pavel Durov at Le Bourget Airport, for example. Many were shocked not just by the event but also by the irony of it. How is it that a staunch libertarian was stopped by none other than French authorities, the upholders of liberté, in a city that had celebrated the most daring free-thinking during the Olympic games ceremonies? Theoretically, Durov himself, given his views and being an honorary citizen of France, could have descended from the heavens as a golden Lucifer at the closing of the Olympics. However, instead of a jubilant blue Dionysus, the adventurous billionaire was met by a rather unamusing gendarme from Saint-Tropez.

Durov's case resembles a grand playground of conspiracy theories, a garden of forking paths, where everyone uncovers their own irrefutable trail. There’s the crypto trail, focussing on the uncontrolled development of Durov's TON blockchain, which had already been predicted to become the future BRICS currency, which significantly worried the relevant authorities in the US. There’s the Trump connection, with the broader right-wing movement in America, which is very active on Durov’s platform. A Kremlin trail emerges as well as a Special Military Operation (SMO) connection, where Telegram is the primary means of communication.

There’s the Baku trail (from where Durov arrived in Paris). Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev was accused of sponsoring New Caledonian separatists, while France's ties with Armenia are well-known. The Gaza trails appears again, in the form of pro-Palestinian Telegram channels. The trail of Macron is tied to rumors that the French president was upset by Durov's refusal to cooperate and lured him to a country where a warrant had already been issued against him. There’s even a trail involving a crypto coach called Yulia. Finally, there’s the trail of Durov himself, who, according to some versions, came to surrender, preferring European justice to the American and Russian versions, while also aiming to boost the growth of his invention in Europe. Some even compared his ill-fated flight to Paris with the flight of Reich minister Rudolf Hess, who, in 1941, flew to negotiate with the British authorities but ended up agreeing to quite the opposite.

Much has been said about Durov, and there are certainly plenty of stylistic disagreements with and criticisms of him. While he may not be in prison per se, he is nonetheless effectively a hostage, and it seems inappropriate to dwell on his quirks and missteps (although he has not shied away from speaking disparagingly about inmates in his time). Therefore, while awaiting further court decisions, let's allow ourselves a single analogy.

The ancient libertarian motto ‘Atlas Shrugged’ seemed to resonate deeply with Durov—one might say quite literally as well. His dedication to sculpting his own physique, much to the delight of his Instagram followers, mirrors his broader pursuit of self-optimization. Essentially, his global activity is also a form of political biohacking. Creating an uncontrolled information network in the modern world is just as much an attempt to bypass the principles of world order as striving to slow down the aging process or avoiding external harmful influences and substances. In fact, he is not being accused of what he did but rather of what he refused to do. In a world where the very phrase ‘freedom of speech’ has long become an oxymoron—now it’s either freedom or speech—– such defiance works only to a certain limit. But hopefully, the slogan ‘Freedom for Durov’ still holds some meaning and weight.

As for the treacherous French, Serge Gainsbourg had already prophesied the sad fate of certain cross-border Telegram messages back in the late seventies: