The name Pavel Durov might not be a familiar to most people. However, you have probably heard of his company – the messaging app ‘Telegram’.
With close to a billion subscribers – it’s one of the biggest social media sites in the world and, like so many other Tech companies, its CEO is an online superstar.
That was until a few days ago.
In a move that has shocked the Tech industry, French authorities arrested the billionaire and a court in Paris charged the 39-year-old with being “complicit in the spread of images of child sexual abuse”, as well as a series of other alleged violations on the Telegram messaging app.
48 hours later, ‘X’ was forced offline in Brazil as Elon Musk refused to comply with local laws resulting in the Supreme Court taking the decision to block one of the world’s most popular social networks.
Today on the Indo Daily Ellen Coyne is joined by Paris-based freelance journalist Catherine Field, and by Adrian Weckler, Technology Editor with the Irish Independent, to look at the man behind the Telegram controversy Pavel Durov, and ask if the Brazil’s banning of Elon Musk’s ‘X’ – is a day of reckoning for Social Media and Tech companies?