Pavel Durov’s arrest suggests that the law enforcement dragnet is being widened from private financial transactions to private speech.
The arrest of the Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France this week is extremely significant. It confirms that we are deep into the second crypto war, where governments are systematically seeking to prosecute developers of digital encryption tools because encryption frustrates state surveillance and control. While the first crypto war in the 1990s was led by the United States, this one is led jointly by the European Union — now its own regulatory superpower.
Durov, a former Russian, now French citizen, was arrested in Paris on Saturday, and has now been indicted. You can read the French accusations here. They include complicity in drug possession and sale, fraud, child pornography and money laundering. These are extremely serious crimes — but note that the charge is complicity, not participation. The meaning of that word “complicity” seems to be revealed by the last three charges: Telegram has been providing users a “cryptology tool” unauthorised by French regulators.
free speech can be good. free speech can also be bad. overall, it’s more good than bad however society seems to agree that free speech has limits - you can’t defame someone, for example
free speech absolutism is fucking dumb; just like most other absolutist stances
this also isn’t even about free speech - this is about someone having access to information requested by investigators to solve crimes, and then refusing to give that information
This is pure nonsense.
Western governments hate Telegram because until now Telegram didn’t cooperate with Western intelligence services like American social media companies do. Everything on Meta or Google gets fed into NSA, but Telegram has been uncooperative.
This will likely change after Durov’s arrest, but it was nice while it lasted.
we don’t disagree about that: governments don’t like that telegram doesn’t cooperate; that’s not in dispute
where the disagreement comes is the part after. telegram (and indeed meta, google, etc) have that data at their disposal. when served with a legal notice to provide information to authorities or shut down illegal behaviour on their platforms, they comply - sometimes that’s a bad thing if the government is overreaching, but sometimes it’s also a good thing (in the case of CSAM and other serious crimes)
there are plenty of clear cut examples of where telegram should shut down channels - CSAM etc… that’s what this arrest was about; the rest is academic
Was it? The French authorities did not provide any convincing evidence, just accusations.
you think they’re going to link to still available (that’s the point - they’re still available) sources of CSAM?
if that’s your burden of proof then buddy i’m sorry to say there’s no way anyone’s going to convince you, and that’s not a good thing
This is the standard excuse for authoritarian governments. Use a crime category no one can object to.
and this is called the slippery slope fallacy and is either a flaw in your logic or a way of arguing in bad faith. either way, it’s just fearmongering. if that’s all you’ve got then i have nothing more to say
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope
You are the one making up a fantasy scenario to satisfy your authotarian urges.
Why use a tool that relies on the goodwill of the operator to secure your privacy? It’s foolish in the first place.
The operator of that tool tomorrow may not be the operator of today, and the operator of today can become compromised by blackmail, legally compelled (see OP), physically compelled, etc to break that trust.
ANYONE who understood how telegram works and also felt it was a tool for privacy doesn’t really understand privacy in the digital age.
Quoting @[email protected] :
And frankly, if they have knowledge of who is sharing CSAM, it’s entirely ethical for them to be compelled to share it.
But what about when it’s who is questioning their sexuality or gender? Or who is organizing a protest in a country that puts down protests and dissent violently? Or… Or… Or… There are so many examples where privacy IS important AND ethical, but in zero of those does it make sense to rely on the goodwill of the operator to safeguard that privacy.
Telegram is the most realistic alternative to breaking Meta’s monopoly. You might like Signal very much, but nobody uses it and the user experience is horrible.
if metas monolopoloy is literally the only thing you care about, but replacing a terrible platform with another platform that lacks privacy protections is not much of an upgrade
Joke’s on you, I use nothing by Meta, nor Signal, nor telegram. My comment had nothing whatsoever to do with what I like or not.
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