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The dilemma of digital platforms.
The news of the arrest of Pavel Durov, founder of the well-known messaging app “Telegram”, has been in the news in recent days. On August 24, Durov was stopped on his way back from Azerbaijan at a secondary airport, Le Bouge, on charges of not having adequately moderated content and not collaborating with law enforcement in the fight against illegal activities, such as drug trafficking and fraud.
The French Republic accuses the young Russian magnate of being an accomplice to the illegal, child pornography and terrorist activities that take place on his platform. Complicity is due to the fact that Telegram, by its nature, is encrypted and cannot be subjected to controls. However, many legal experts question the validity of these accusations, relying on what we could say is the mantra of modern justice: “Criminal responsibility is personal”. It would therefore not be correct to hold the manager responsible for the behavior of users.
Born in St. Petersburg, and raised in Turin, he had been living for years in the United Arab Emirates where Telegram’s 30 billion headquarters are located. Durov’s arrest has raised quite a few controversies on the already debated freedom of expression, a topic that has always been present when talking about social media. The first to have sided with Durov was his colleague Elon Musk, who is also often in the spotlight, who on his social X writes just one-word “liberté, liberté, liberté”. Believed to be directly linked to X and Telegram, Elon Musk would have in fact received a warning to moderation from the French commissioner Breton while Durov’s arrest would have occurred at the same time.
The hashtag #FreePavel went viral on social media in just a few hours, highlighting the growing mobilization in favor of Durov and the defense of freedom of expression. In recent years, the app has been at risk of being closed several times: in 2022, the Germans mobilized due to an alleged coup organized via messages, in 2023 Brazil for a neo-Nazi threat, and lastly Spain last March for violation of intellectual property. Russia itself, the entrepreneur’s homeland, threatened to block the application in 2018 for refusing to provide the government with the keys to decrypt opposition groups created within it.
The general fear is that Durov’s event will create a precedent: if he is guilty, then all those responsible for social platforms must be considered guilty, from the “cleanest” Mark Zuckerberg to the most controversial Elon Musk. Politicians from the right wing are seemingly siding with Durov, the Italian MEP Carlo Fidanza (FDI, ECR) writes on social media that arrests must always be well justified if we are talking about liberal democracy, freedom of expression is under attack and we must not let our guard down.
The position of the left-wing parties that focus on the need for more efficient regulation of digital platforms in managing illicit activities is contrasting: Durov should therefore respond to the accusations against him given the excessive ease with which criminal activities have taken place within his application.
The Telegram affair also opens up two other significant scenarios: the first concerns VPN networks, which allow navigation from an IP different from the one to which one is actually connected to the Internet, thus allowing in some cases significant hacker attacks, yet no one has (yet) dreamed of putting a stop to apps like Proton or NordVPN; the second concerns new intelligence techniques, which if they stop investigations into terrorists or child pornography networks because they do not have the codes to decrypt messages, probably need to review their work function completely.
In conclusion, the arrest of Pavel Durov represents a significant turning point in the debate on freedom of expression, the responsibility of digital platforms, and the regulation of cybersecurity in Europe. The repercussions of this event could affect not only the future of Telegram but also the digital communications landscape in general. In France, it represents a landmark case that raises crucial questions about freedom of expression and the responsibility of digital platforms. The tension between the need to ensure public safety and the right to free speech is more relevant than ever.
As the Durov case unfolds, it will be crucial to monitor the global reaction and the legal implications that will arise, not only for Telegram but for the future of digital communications worldwide.