Problem:
1. Explain the concept "Terrorism" in relation to International Relations and the following quote: "Terrorism is an act of violence by non-state actors directed at civilians and seeking to send a message." Need Assignment Help?
2. Relate the quote above to the article below: (show understanding of the quoted concept - Terrorism).
Article:
The case against Pavel Durov reflected an ongoing fight over one of the world's most popular messaging and media apps, which is widely used in the country.
Russia's main security service said on Wednesday that it had charged the founder of Telegram, one of the most popular messaging apps in the country and around the world, with facilitating terrorism, escalating the Kremlin's efforts to restrict all means of communication not under its direct control.
The security service, the F.S.B., said in a statement that it had issued an international warrant to arrest the Telegram founder, Pavel Durov, 41, who is Russian-born.
The service accused Telegram of failing to remove information "actively used by Ukrainian special services, terrorist organizations and extremist organizations to start and coordinate sabotage and terrorist acts, mass killings and cyber fraud activities" in Russia. The charges are just the latest in a broad campaign by governments across geopolitical and ideological divides to rein in Telegram, which was founded in 2013 by Mr. Durov. Although the app has been a lifeline to people in authoritarian countries like Russia who seek ways to communicate freely, it has also become a global center of criminal activity, disinformation and hateful content.
While autocratic countries such as Russia and Iran have moved to restrict access to the app, many democratic nations have also sought to make its leadership more responsive to their demands. Mr. Durov's willingness to defy governments has increasingly made him and his company targets.
Russia last year restricted the use of Telegram and promoted an alternative, MAX, a state-backed messaging app. The restrictions on Telegram included an effort to limit access to virtual private networks, or VPNs, that allowed people to continue using the service.
Despite the restrictions, Telegram is widely used in Russia through VPNs, not only for direct communication but also by media outlets to relay news and other information not sanctioned by the Kremlin. The service is also popular among the military on both sides of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Telegram says it has more than a billion active users around the world. In April, Mr. Durov said 65 million Russians still used Telegram on a daily basis.
Mr. Durov, who regularly criticizes governments for what he says are their efforts to infringe upon internet freedom, did not directly comment on the charges announced on Wednesday by the Russian authorities. Shortly after they were made public, however, Telegram's account on the social media site X posted an old image of him raising his middle finger.
Mr. Durov holds Emirati and French citizenship and permanently resides in Dubai. The international warrant is unlikely to lead to Mr. Durov's arrest in the United Arab Emirates, but it will further complicate his international travel.
In Russia, Telegram has played a unique role since the country's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. At that time, the Kremlin banned or pushed out all media outlets not under its supervision and restricted access to most international services, including YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. As a result, Telegram turned into the most vital source of unfiltered information available to regular Russians.
It also became a social phenomenon. Users maintained chats with family members and neighbors in their apartment buildings on Telegram, manually selecting their preferred news sources without relying on algorithms. Much of the discussion over what is happening in Russia takes place on Telegram.
The restrictions on Telegram last year appeared to have political ramifications, with President Vladimir V. Putin's approval rating declining to levels unseen since the start of the war with Ukraine. It exposed some of the internal rifts withing the Russian government and led to a rare scene in the State Duma, the lower house of Parliament, in which the pro-Kremlin lawmaker Sergei Mironov called people who blocked Telegram "idiots" and "scoundrels."
The announcement about the charges against Mr. Durov came days after Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin's spokesman, told the Russian news agency Interfax that the authorities had been in touch with Telegram's leadership to discuss lifting restrictions on the app.
Some Kremlin analysts suggested that the timing of Mr. Peskov's comment and the subsequent announcement of the charges against Mr. Durov reflected an internal battle in the Russian government over whether to allow more freedom for the app or to limit its use.
Ilya Grashchenkov, a Moscow-based political analyst, wrote on his Telegram channel, "For now, this appears less like the final chapter for Telegram in Russia than another round in the ongoing battle over its control."
Anastasia Kashevarova, an influential Russian military blogger, wrote in a post on Telegram that the situation surrounding the messaging app had "clearly illustrated the fragmentation and lack of coordination among competing factions."
"Yesterday, they were talking about rapprochement with Mr. Durov, and today, they issued a warrant for his arrest," Ms. Kashevarova wrote. "That is why public trust in statements from politicians and officials is eroding, and that is bad."
Mr. Durov was born in St. Petersburg and helped create Vkontakte, a Russian equivalent of Facebook, at the age of 21. The platform's success led Mr. Durov to be compared to Mark Zuckerberg and other young Silicon Valley entrepreneurs gaining fame in the early years of social media.
At the time, Russia's internet was more open and free, and start-ups were seen as exciting places to work. Mr. Durov gained attention for stunts including throwing money from a window of the company's offices in St. Petersburg.
The mood soured as the platform's popularity grew in Russia, according to Mr. Durov. He has said he left the country after a disagreement with the Russian authorities over sharing data about users who were using Vkontakte to organize protests. Mr. Durov said he refused, which ultimately led to him being forced to sell the platform and leave the country. Vkontakte then came under the control of a Kremlin-aligned company.
Since starting Telegram, Mr. Durov has operated the messaging app like a stateless organization, driven by a guiding idea that communication should be uncensored. That ethos, which Mr. Durov has said was inspired in part by his experience under Russia's authoritarian government, has helped make Telegram popular with activists and other privacy-conscious users.
But it has also made it a gathering ground for illicit content, drawing scrutiny from government investigators.
In 2024, Mr. Durov was arrested on arrival in France and later charged with facilitating criminal activity on Telegram. After being held in custody for four days, he was released and ordered to stay in France by the authorities there. His travel ban was later revoked.
In a statement at the time, Mr. Durov said, "Claims in some media that Telegram is some sort of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue."
In its statement on Wednesday announcing the arrest warrant, the F.S.B. cited a specific case in which it said a dating chat on Telegram was used by Ukrainian special services to recruit Russians and engage them in "sabotage and terrorist activities through deception and psychological manipulation."
The F.S.B. said that it had detained 46 people, including minors, across Russia who had been recruited through the app and "committed armed attacks on law enforcement officers, set fire to transport, energy, communications, and credit and financial system facilities."