It has been one month since the arrest by French authorities of Pavel Durov, the billionaire co-founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, on charges of allegedly failing to act against criminals using his platform. He's still in France after being released on a five-million-euro ($5.6 million) bail and must check in with police twice a week.
He very quickly began cooperating with the French government, it appears, though his lawyer decried it as "absurd" and Telegram supporters and free speech advocates blasted the efforts at state censorship. "It is totally absurd to think that the head of a social network... could be involved in criminal acts that could be committed on the messaging service," Durov's lawyer David-Olivier Kaminski had said. The question from the start was: why the highly unusual effort to prosecute a CEO directly instead of bringing legal action against the company as a whole? (the normative route)
The whole spectacle of him being hauled into custody after disembarking from his private jet over the possibility that individuals were using the world's largest messaging app for criminal activity also seemed designed to 'send a message' from Western governments and create a chilling effect. We explored this scenario in "Musk Should Be Nervous" - Deep State Lackey Admits Real Target Following Telegram Founder's Arrest.
On Monday Durov made a significant announcement which is clearly the result of his ongoing legal ordeal in France. He said Telegram has removed more "problematic content" at this point. He further acknowledged in the new statement that the app's search feature "has been abused by people who violated our terms of service to sell illegal goods."
"Over the past few weeks" his staff has been carefully searching through the platform using artificial intelligence to ensure "all the problematic content we identified in Search is no longer accessible," he explained.
Importantly, he then said Telegram has changed its terms of service and privacy policy, now making clear that suspected criminals and policy violators can now have their personal details handed over to authorities, including internet IP addresses and phone numbers "in response to valid legal requests."
The founder and CEO added that: "We won't let bad actors jeopardize the integrity of our platform for almost a billion users."
While the United Arab Emirates-based platform boasts nearly one billion monthly active users, that could change with this new policy update. There could be some degree of a user exodus over 'trust' and data security at a moment Durov is still essentially a hostage of the French state.
Durov was detained by the National Anti-Fraud Office (ONAF) over the alleged facilitation of crimes including terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and fraud. "On his platform, he allowed an incalculable number of offences and crimes to be committed, for which he did nothing to moderate or cooperate," a source told TF1 TV.
There are also allegations of widespread child exploitation, and Durov has been repeatedly accused of ignoring outreach from child safety watchdogs.
But ultimately the arrest was characterized by Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom as part of the "crackdown against free speech."
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