Durov is originally a Russian citizen. Russia wanted him to store customer data in Russia and occasionally give some of it up upon search warrants. He decided no, and to emigrate to UAE instead. Telegram’s Pavel Durov made a ‘miscalculation’ fleeing Russia, says Kremlin (Medvedev)
Telegram has been extraordinarily slow to remove child porn groups and when it did this, batches of thousands were pulled which means they were allowed to operate for long periods of time. Then there is everything else from drugs, money laundering and illegal gun sales etc. Nobody made him go to France which he has a passport from. The guy is reckless and this is what happens.
This guy like Elon Musk must understand the "free speech" they want...it's a very attractive platform to terrorists for communication, money laundering, fraud, drug trafficking, sex trafficking communication, child abuse/pedophile communication, and many other crimes. Ironically, these idiots want NO government involved but at the same time, they are not able to police their platform or not willing. The EU will put them on a "Wanted list" and wait for the idiots to travel into or through the European Union so that they can be arrested. Telegram said in a statement that: "its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving". "It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform," the app said. Now imagine if Elitetrader.com did the same under Free Speech. We log in and we see criminal activity like the above here at ET that some members promote, and engage in even after many complaints from members located in Europe... Baron would be arrested if he too traveled to any country in the European Union because he failed to protect his European members. Simply, Elon Musk needs to keep a closer eye on his platform especially when he has the tools to ensure Free Speech is not being abused on his platform. Thus, not having the tools is one thing but having the tools and then refusing to use those tools or ignoring law enforcement complaints of criminal activity on your platform will land anyone in prison like CEO Durov when they land in Europe. P.S. Baron...you're doing a good job in keeping this place clean even when others are trolling, harassing, stalking other members. It's not perfect but its better than other social media platforms. wrbtrader
= I will note that that EU Digital Services Act laws apply to “major social media platforms”. Congrats to Baron on the promotion of ET to a major platform.
More information -- they plan to charge Pavel Durov with failure to moderate child sexual abuse material on Telegram. This is probably the best legal route -- because there is no public sympathy for executives who support child sexual abuse. If they had added charges on supporting terrorism, drug trafficking, fraud, and money laundering then there would not be such clear public support for the prosecution. It also helps that Durov told law enforcement authorities multiple times to F-off that he was going to do nothing to moderate CSAM on Telegram -- making the prosecution very clear cut. The article provides some good context on why to target Durov first rather than Twitter or Facebook executives. Well, for one, Durov is not an American citizen and secondly his legal defense pockets are much less deep than Musk's or Zuckerberg's. The prosecution of Durov can be used to establish the standard of upholding the EU Digital Services Act via criminal prosecution of company executives. Telegram CEO Held Over Alleged Child Protection Failures on App https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...over-alleged-child-protection-failures-on-app
In a public forum speech is moderated, even by the speakers themselves. So, the devil is in the details. However, I'm under the impression that platforms like Telegram, WhatsApp, etc. provide for so called "ultra secure end-to-end encryption". And, as you point out, the platform operators would not have the ability/tools to moderate such communication. This begets the question... under what circumstances (if any) should society allow ultra secure communications mechanisms like this? And, even if such ultra secure communications tools are outlawed, will it actually prevent their use? Doesn't this boil down to a similar case of outlawing guns and only leaving them in the hands of criminals; who simply won't abide by the law anyway? P.S. Macron has come out saying the arrest is part of a judicial inquiry and that it wasn't politically motivated (1). Just another case of politics trying to keep up with technology I suppose.
The operators of these secure communication platforms have the ability to provide the identities (sign-up info), IP addresses, usage/channels, etc. of users on their platforms -- even if they don't provide the content of the messages. When you have a Telegram channel providing CSAM material -- the company can easily provide this information to law enforcement. Except the CEO told authorities F-off, I'm not providing information about criminals. Normally these channels hosting CSAM material are reported to law enforcement by disgusted individuals or by law enforcement monitoring them. They know what the content is -- what they seek is information leading towards the actual identities of the people posting on the channel, which only Telegram can provide. And by the way -- Telegram can shut down channels being used for CSAM and also ban the users. This would simply slow down the problem -- as a new channels are created and users re-join under new ids. But it would be a step towards addressing the problem -- but Telegram does not support doing this preferring to allow CSAM to run amok.
You sound like someone with an axe to grind. If Telegram can't see the content then how can they be sure the identity they're providing is that of the criminal? I'd give it more thought. If the French just want all sign-up info that would amount to a warrant-less search and not too many people agree w/ that... at least not in liberal democracies. Again, the devil is in the details and, with all due respect, you don't sound like a particularly well informed authority to me. Stop trolling
You really should look into how "secure end-to-end encryption" platforms operate and what information the platform owners can provide. The items I listed out can easily be provided for a user by the platform owners -- including who posted at what time on what channels.
I don't really have time to look into Telegram's source code and their server is proprietary anyway... so a lot would be pure speculation. If you have something from the repo that is concrete then please point it out. Nonetheless, I'm only considering the underlying ideas. And, like I said, you appear to have an axe to grind; or are just quick to jump to conclusions. You won't win me over by trolling or appealing to authority. As they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating I'll assume that the guy is innocent until proven otherwise. Your opinion is merely noted.