BEST FROM THE WEB: US government-funded censorship arm ‘Atlantic Council’ targeted Telegram just two months before Durov’s arrest

French authorities arrested Russian-born Pavel Durov, a dual UAE-French citizen, over the weekend as he stepped off his private jet in Paris. Durov, CEO and founder of the popular messaging app Telegram, is facing a number of serious charges from French authorities, ranging from drug offenses to child sexual exploitation. Of course, none of the charges relate to Durov directly, but rather refer to activities that allegedly took place on Telegram, Durov’s privacy-focused messaging app with nearly 1 billion active users. It’s unclear from the charging documents what exactly the French authorities are arguing for Durov’s guilt, and French President Emmanuel Macron took to X (formerly Twitter) to assure the public that the arrest was not “political.” Still, it’s extremely unlikely that Durov’s arrest is unrelated to Durov’s well-known refusals to cooperate with censorship and law enforcement requests from intelligence agencies…