Telegram CEO Arrested in France Over Content Moderation Issues

hans1972 said:
It's much better to take the distribution method instead of going after what might be millions of people committing crimes.
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So why aren’t you calling for the wholesale disabling of the internet then? Where does this stop? How about people who have been labeled as “terrorists” for opposing government/EU mandates in France? In Canada? Other Western countries?

I might be an old school kind of guy but I always thought the object of fighting crime was arresting the perpetrators.

I just simply do not trust governments in the West anymore. They’ve showed their cards, Snowden exposed some tactics, but post 2010 we are seeing governments going full on authoritarian towards speech they simply do not like online. The UK and Canada are out of control with punishing dissent online.
 
hans1972 said:
The EU (and other countries) has implemented some very heavy handed laws to regulate and force social media platforms to moderate and censor.

The Digital Service Act is to social media companies like the DMA is to Apple. The DSA makes the social media company accountable for all content on their platforms.

The EU Commission gave Facebook only 24h to remove pro-Hamas posts.
www.theverge.com

EU gives Meta 24 hours to respond to pro-Hamas content

New EU regulations put in place tough online speech rules.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com
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When will they be distributing the latest Newspeak edition?

I just cannot believe the power some of you seem so eager to give to governments. You know that never ends well, don’t you? I’m just a regular guy but think long and hard about what you want to empower government to do and whether you trust all political sides to apply that power.
 
jblank said:
So why aren’t you calling for the wholesale disabling of the internet then? Where does this stop? How about people who have been labeled as “terrorists” for opposing government/EU mandates in France? In Canada? Other Western countries?
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Because it's not going after the entire Internet. It's only those parts which is used for or in support of illegal activities, especially large online platforms.

And France isn't going after people posting conspiracy theories on the Internet. It's serious crimes like child pornography, frauds, money laundering, selling and transport illegal drugs, prostitution, etc.
 
MacRumors said:


Pavel Durov, the 39-year-old Russian-born billionaire founder and CEO of Telegram, was arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris late Saturday evening. The arrest occurred shortly after Durov arrived on a private jet from Azerbaijan and is said to be part of a joint investigation by several agencies investigating alleged failures in content moderation on the Telegram platform that may have facilitated criminal activity.

telegram-app-icon.jpg

According to sources who spoke to Reuters, French authorities had spotted Durov on the passenger list and moved to arrest him due to an existing warrant. Several French TV reports said that authorities have been investigating Telegram's alleged moderation failures, which they believe may have facilitated a range of illegal activities, including terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud, and child exploitation.

Telegram, which is based in Dubai, responded to Durov's arrest by stating that the company "abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act" and that its moderation practices are "within industry standards and constantly improving." The company emphasized that Durov "has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe," calling it "absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform."

The arrest has drawn criticism from various quarters, including X (Twitter) owner Elon Musk, who has posted the hashtag "#FreePavel" on the platform, and has previously claimed that free speech is under attack in Europe. Russian officials have also expressed their concern, with the foreign ministry demanding consular access to Durov, who holds dual French and UAE citizenship.

Durov, often referred to as the "Russian Mark Zuckerberg," founded Telegram in 2013 after leaving Russia due to conflicts with authorities over his refusal to shut down opposition communities on his previous social media platform, VK. In 2018, Russia began blocking Telegram after the app refused to grant state security services access to users' messages, but the ban was lifted in 2020 when Telegram agreed to help with "extremism investigations." Telegram has since grown to nearly 1 billion users and has become a crucial communication tool, particularly in Ukraine since Russia's invasion in 2022.

The Telegram chief's arrest has also put Telegram's encryption practices under the spotlight again. Despite being widely described as an "encrypted messaging app," Telegram's default settings for most users do not provide end-to-end encryption. Unlike WhatsApp and Signal, one-on-one chats are not encrypted by default, and group chats are never encrypted. This means that Telegram staff potentially have access to every message sent in these chats, which may be why Russia is so concerned about the arrest.

For users seeking true end-to-end encryption on Telegram, it must be manually configured as a "secret chat," a process that is not all that straightforward. Not only that, these "secret" group chats are limited to only two users, which raises questions about the platform's efforts to protect user privacy.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Telegram CEO Arrested in France Over Content Moderation Issues
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He's a very smart guy—something tells me he knew what he was doing by touching down in France. We'll see.
 
jblank said:
When will they be distributing the latest Newspeak edition?

I just cannot believe the power some of you seem so eager to give to governments. You know that never ends well, don’t you? I’m just a regular guy but think long and hard about what you want to empower government to do and whether you trust all political sides to apply that power.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying I'm supporting, just telling you how the laws and regulation is in the EU and most of Europe.
It's even worse in Russia. There you can't say any negative about the Russian military without being sent to prison.

On the other side, prostitution is legal in many places and you can do drag performances here, even in front of children.
 
hans1972 said:
Because it's not going after the entire Internet. It's only those parts which is used for or in support of illegal activities, especially large online platforms.

And France isn't going after people posting conspiracy theories on the Internet. It's serious crimes like child pornography, frauds, money laundering, selling and transport illegal drugs, prostitution, etc.
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But we know that these governments are going beyond that, Hans. It’s not just money laundering, etc., it’s policy dissent also.

No, France just had their media allies label protesters and dissidents as “terrorists and extremists”, that’s all. See, it’s all well and good when they’re going after your opponents but if your opponents get in power, they can go after you.
 
hans1972 said:
The EU (and other countries) has implemented some very heavy handed laws to regulate and force social media platforms to moderate and censor.

The Digital Service Act is to social media companies like the DMA is to Apple. The DSA makes the social media company accountable for all content on their platforms.

The EU Commission gave Facebook only 24h to remove pro-Hamas posts.
www.theverge.com

EU gives Meta 24 hours to respond to pro-Hamas content

New EU regulations put in place tough online speech rules.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com
Click to expand...
I wish they would act on some existing very heavy handed laws better to regulate all the crime, drugs, sex trafficking etc. that happens outside of the virtual world. But hey, arresting Durov is the best they can do. Problem solved.
 
hans1972 said:
I'm not saying I'm supporting, just telling you how the laws and regulation is in the EU and most of Europe.
It's even worse in Russia. There you can't say any negative about the Russian military without being sent to prison.

On the other side, prostitution is legal in many places and you can do drag performances here, even in front of children.
Click to expand...

I don’t disagree, Russia has a horrible record against dissent.

I’m confused by your second paragraph. Prostitution should be legal everywhere and I don’t know of anyone anywhere calling for banning drag performances. Why anyone, the performers or the parents, believes that to be appropriate for children is questionable. All that said, I don’t want people to be imprisoned or otherwise punished by the state for either.
 
hans1972 said:
Because it's not going after the entire Internet. It's only those parts which is used for or in support of illegal activities, especially large online platforms.

And France isn't going after people posting conspiracy theories on the Internet. It's serious crimes like child pornography, frauds, money laundering, selling and transport illegal drugs, prostitution, etc.
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And they should go after those people.
 
alexandr said:
I wish they would act on some existing very heavy handed laws better to regulate all the crime, drugs, sex trafficking etc. that happens outside of the virtual world. But hey, arresting Durov is the best they can do. Problem solved.
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That ship has sailed. Europe has imported the third world and too many of those people are involved in criminal activity. If they go “heavy handed” on that, they’ll be arresting a high number of “migrants” and that will make government look bad so that won’t happen. Then, if they only go “heavy handed” on native Irish, Brits, French, etc., they’ll have complaints about a two-tiered justice system.

The West is over Alexandr. The white flags have been waived.
 
jblank said:
That ship has sailed. Europe has imported the third world and too many of those people are involved in criminal activity. If they go “heavy handed” on that, they’ll be arresting a high number of “migrants” and that will make government look bad so that won’t happen. Then, if they only go “heavy handed” on native Irish, Brits, French, etc., they’ll have complaints about a two-tiered justice system.

The West is over Alexandr. The white flags have been waived.
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Yea, I didn't come here for that :D
 
alexandr said:
Yea, I didn't come here for that :D
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For what? I wish I was wrong, I hope I am, but you don’t have to do much digging to see that governments that have imported high amounts of people from North Africa and the Middle East have been involved in some heinous sex crimes in their new countries. The UK, Sweden, and Germany have all had huge scandals about the covering up of this activity and the data.
 
jblank said:
For what? I wish I was wrong, I hope I am, but you don’t have to do much digging to see that governments that have imported high amounts of people from North Africa and the Middle East have been involved in some heinous sex crimes in their new countries. The UK, Sweden, and Germany have all had huge scandals about the covering up of this activity and the data.
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I came a long time ago, and to the US, by 'here' I meant the west :D
 
alexandr said:
And they should go after those people.
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And they are, but they need help and Telegram has refused thus making them complicit in the crime.

Here is some of the things Durov is being investigated for:

Complicity - web-mastering an online platform in order to enable an illegal transaction in organized group,

Refusal to communicate, at the request of competent authorities, information or documents necessary for carrying out and operating interceptions allowed by law,

Complicity - possessing pornographic images of minors,

Complicity - distributing, offering or making available pornographic images of minors, in organized group,

Complicity - acquiring, transporting, possessing, offering or selling narcotic substances,

Complicity - offering, selling or making available, without legitimate reason, equipment, tools, programs or data designed for or adapted to get access to and to damage the operation of an automated data processing system,

Complicity - organized fraud,

Criminal association with a view to committing a crime or an offense punishable by 5 or more years of imprisonment,
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If the allegations are true, Durov is one of those people committing crimes by not helping the authorities when required by law.
 
hans1972 said:
And they are, but they need help and Telegram has refused thus making them complicit in the crime.

Here is some of the things Durov is being investigated for:



If the allegations are true, Durov is one of those people committing crimes by not helping the authorities when required by law.
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Right, because all of the public groups there are being heavily investigated by law enforcement — in other words they've done absolutely everything to fight crime with the resources they had. Right?
 
To figure out what is going on you just need to ask yourself who am I not allowed to criticize. The charges are all bogus so they can go after specific damaging data that wasn't being removed. It seems like all replies here are unaware that a massive data leak from a certain country was put on Telegram.
 
jblank said:
I’m confused by your second paragraph. Prostitution should be legal everywhere and I don’t know of anyone anywhere calling for banning drag performances. Why anyone, the performers or the parents, believes that to be appropriate for children is questionable. All that said, I don’t want people to be imprisoned or otherwise punished by the state for either.
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1672817859729162240
en.wikipedia.org

Tennessee Adult Entertainment Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Welcome to the US.
 
hans1972 said:
And they are, but they need help and Telegram has refused thus making them complicit in the crime.

Here is some of the things Durov is being investigated for:



If the allegations are true, Durov is one of those people committing crimes by not helping the authorities when required by law.
Click to expand...

You may be right Hans, we shall see.

My friend, can we both agree that governments throwing heads of social media groups in prison would be a bad precedent to set and trusting that government cares more about covering their own buttocks and maintaining power than the “greater good” is highly likely?
 
hans1972 said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1672817859729162240
en.wikipedia.org

Tennessee Adult Entertainment Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Welcome to the US.
Click to expand...

That is my state, that’s new to me and if it came with actual criminal penalties, I wouldn’t support that. Two wrongs don’t make a right.

We aren’t perfect here in America, but I can at least smart off to an agent of the state or his dog and tell government online that their policy on an issue is BS, without fear of months/years in prison.

For now.
 
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