Durov affair: how to curb Telegram?
The arrest of Telegram boss Pavel Durov has drawn criticism from the Russian embassy in Paris. The French judiciary is accusing the billionaire, who has French and Russian citizenship, of insufficient cooperation in the prosecution of serious offences coordinated via Telegram. Europe’s press sheds light on very different aspects of the case.
Time for Brussels to prove itself
Le Monde sees this as a test of EU muscle:
“The case has shaken the world of digital communication, where supporters of Pavel Durov’s approach like X owner Elon Musk, have denounced this as a violation of freedom of expression. It is also an important judicial and political test for the EU, which in recent years has established itself as a champion for the democratic regulation of digital platforms. As European countries are particularly vulnerable to terrorism and disinformation campaigns aimed at destabilising democracies, they are being forced to increase their vigilance without endangering the rule of law.”
Almost everything is visible to operators
IT expert Dan Bogdanov explains in Eesti Päevaleht:
“Telegram has tens of millions of users in Russia and Ukraine, and is a hugely important source of information about what is going on in the war. This happens in chat rooms with thousands of participants and channels that users can subscribe to. What you should know about Telegram is that it does not use end-to-end encryption either for chat rooms or for channels. Consequently everything – i.e. what is said and who says it – is visible to the service provider and may be stored for later use. In short, Telegram presents itself as a secure chat app, but in fact it only offers this service in two-way conversations, and only if users go to the trouble of switching it on.”
Governments have lost patience
It was time to act, Spotmedia concurs:
“The arrest of Telegram’s CEO is an unprecedented act that sends a clear message to the billionaires who control social networks: governments have lost their patience. Racist attacks, terrorism, religious fanaticism and lying propaganda are encouraged and promoted on social media. Despite repeated violations of the laws governing open societies, the administrators of digital platforms are apparently unwilling or unable to put a stop to the promotion of hate, incitement to murder, and fraud.”
Autocrats will be overjoyed
In many countries the social media platform Telegram is one of the few alternatives to state propaganda channels, columnist Hugo Rifkind explains in The Times:
.“Telegram, after all, is not just used by Russians spreading propaganda, but also by Russians seeking to avoid it, and by Ukrainians too. It is used widely in the Middle East, both by people you might like and also people you might not; and increasingly in India, as Narendra Modi’s own online censorship grows. Will the governments of places far less free than France feel emboldened by Durov’s arrest? Inescapably”
Durov already co-operates with those in power
In an X post republished by Echo, Maria Pevchikh, head of the Navalny Anti-Corruption Foundation FBK, rejects the theory that Telegram has refused to work with intelligence services until now:
“Telegram and Durov ALREADY cooperate with the authorities when it comes to politics (deleting the Smart Voting chat bot and the channel for wives of mobilised troops [both in Russia], blocking RT news abroad, etc.). It’s strange to block a channel with a list of registered Duma candidates, but not to block a channel with a list of all the hard drugs that you can get delivered within 15 minutes. Telegram knows and sees these channels perfectly well (much better than we do), but decides not to block them. So let’s temper the fervour in all the arguments about Durov the fighter.”
Finding the right balance
Philosopher and publisher Artis Svece points in Satori to the need to weigh up conflicting values:
“At first glance it might seem surprising that the police in democratic, liberal France have arrested such a defender of freedom of speech, while Russia is rushing to his defence. ... It goes without saying that freedom of information is not Western society’s only value, and that sometimes values also end up in conflict with one another, for example the desire to project children and to ensure uncensored communication. The question is whether we Europeans are always able to find a balance between the values that make life in this part of the world compatible with our sense of self-respect and an enviable role model for others.”
The secret services will also have their reasons
Internet lawyer Kostjantyn Korsun sees the arrest as a logical step. He writes on Censor.net:
“You can’t spit in the face of the police in the world’s most powerful countries for years and hope to get away with it. You can’t simply ignore the international ‘rules of the game’ that require certain content to be removed. And you can’t beat competitors by ignoring the boundaries of what is permissible. ... I suspect that among the accusations that have not been made public, one is cooperation with the secret services of the terrorist state [Russia]. I am sure that the French special intelligence service DGSI has already compiled a thick dossier on this subject.”
Telegram is not a media outlet
Writing on Facebook, human rights activist Alexander Podrabinek describes the conflict between state monitoring and freedom of expression:
“On the one hand, why not assist the police of a democratic state in finding real criminals? On the other hand, the police are the police. ... Telegram is a messenger service, not a mass medium. Should Durov censor correspondence? By that logic, telephone companies should also eavesdrop on their subscribers’ conversations and prevent illegal activities. Is that okay in a democracy? In China, Russia, Belarus and other countries under despotic regimes, it is.”
The Russian army’s only messaging service
Russia’s reaction is panic-driven, says Jutarnji list:
“Following Durov’s arrest, Anton Gerashchenko, a former adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Minister, published a number of comments taken from Russian social networks on X. He sees a lot of speculation and panic there. There are comments saying things like: ‘Durov allegedly requested a meeting with Putin in Baku a few days ago and was refused.’ ‘Durov’s arrest may be like the cracking of the Enigma code by the British during the Second World War: Telegram is the only messaging service used by the Russian army. All its messages could end up in the hands of the West’, and ‘The Russian agent network could be exposed’.”
Both a blessing and a curse
In an X post republished by Echo, human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov makes the case for international standards for the moderation of online content:
“Some claim that Durov has been passing on information to the Russian authorities for a long time, and there have been precedents confirming that. But I also know that without Telegram, resistance to the Russian regime would now be almost impossible. After Pavel Durov is released, the global community needs to engage in a major discussion on this issue. ... Perhaps democratic countries should set up a sort of international committee to develop standardised regulations for the moderation of all major information platforms. A certain minimum effort must be made to combat things like the dissemination of illegal goods and materials through these networks.”
