First France, now South Korea — Telegram’s legal troubles are only growing. Here’s why

Following the recent arrest of its founder in France, Telegram is now facing potential legal troubles in South Korea.

The country’s chief police investigator has announced a preliminary investigation into the instant-messaging platform’s alleged role in abetting sex crimes, according to a report from the local Yonhap News Agency. 

This comes against the backdrop of South Korea’s efforts to tackle the spread of deepfake pornography that has been targeting young women, including teenagers, in the country.

The probe also poses another major legal challenge to Telegram after its founder and chief executive, Pavel Durov, was arrested in France on Aug. 24 for alleged offenses related to the messaging app. 

Durov, the 39-year-old Russian-born billionaire, was arrested by French authorities following a preliminary investigation into Telegram launched on July 8. 

Similar to South Korea’s investigation, French authorities were probing the platform’s role in the distribution of pornographic images of minors, as well as facilitating organized crime, drug trafficking and fraud. 

Durov was reportedly accused of failing to mitigate such criminal activities on the platform. Telegram said in a statement posted on social media platform X that it abides by EU laws and that Durov had “nothing to hide.”

According to Yonhap’s report on Monday, Woo Jong-soo, head of the National Office of Investigation, drew connections between their case and the one in France and said there were plans to collaborate with their French counterparts and other international institutions. 

The investigation could be complicated by the fact that Telegram does not readily provide investigation data, such as account information, to any state investigative bodies, including those in the U.S., Woo reportedly said. 

Telegram’s refusal to share information with investigators when required by law has also been noted in the French investigation.  

While Durov’s arrest has been seen as an unprecedented move, the platform has recently faced legal issues in other countries, such as Brazil and Germany, over concerns surrounding illegal and harmful content.

While Telegram has argued that its content moderation practices are “within industry standards and constantly improving,” certain features of the platform have made it a particular target of government scrutiny.

By only requiring users to provide a phone number to register and offering the ability to hold end-to-end encrypted conversations through a “secret chats” feature, the app offers a high degree of anonymity. 

These anonymous features have long attracted illicit actors such as scammers and extremist groups to the platform. Now, in South Korea, they are attracting distributors of deepfake porn. 

Deepfakes are videos, sounds, or images of a real person that have been digitally altered and manipulated. They have become increasingly prominent amid the emergence of generative AI technology. 

South Korean police are probing eight automated programs generating deepfake pornography for Telegram groups, along with chat rooms responsible for circulating such content, according to Yonhap’s report. 

The investigations come amid pressure on authorities to respond to a growing number of reports detailing how Telegram groups, some as large as 220,000 members, have been used to share sexually exploitative deepfake images of female students from local universities, high schools, and even middle schools. 

This is not the first time Telegram has been at the center of a sex crime scandal in South Korea. 

In 2020, South Korean authorities arrested a ringleader of an online network that used Telegram to blackmail and coerce women and children into sharing explicit images of themselves. No legal action was taken against Telegram at the time.

In response to Durov’s arrest, Chris Beer, consumer and tech analyst at GWI, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe” that it was unclear how far authorities would be willing to go in regulating and cracking down on Telegram, though other messaging and social media apps could also come under scrutiny.

Beer added that there remains a tension between some consumers’ desire to have their freedom of speech protected and also government oversight to shield them from harmful content.