In police custody in France since his arrest on Saturday, Telegram boss Pavel Durov has crystallized the recurring criticism from regulators about the lack of moderation of messaging services, while his supporters like Elon Musk have denounced a violation of “freedoms.”
What is Telegram accused of?
Used by nearly a billion users, the online messaging service launched in 2013 by Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai, on which communications can be encrypted from end to end, has positioned itself against the grain of its American competitors (WhatsApp, Messenger, etc.), criticized for their commercial exploitation of personal data.
Telegram has pledged to never reveal any information about its users.
Since setting up its headquarters in Dubai, Telegram has also protected itself from state moderation rules, at a time when the European Union is putting pressure on major platforms to remove their illegal content.
The French justice system accuses Pavel Durov of not taking action against the criminal uses of his platform (fraud, fraud, drug trafficking, organized crime, glorification of terrorism, cyberbullying, etc.), in particular through a lack of moderation and collaboration with the authorities.
“Telegram complies with European laws, including the Digital Services Regulation (DSA, editor’s note), its moderation action is in line with the industry standard,” Telegram responded on its own channel on Sunday evening.
“Crime and hate speech have proliferated on Telegram, but Durov has been incredibly uncooperative […] “If he had been more cooperative, it’s unlikely he would have found himself in this situation,” Marc O. Jones, an associate professor at Northwestern University in Qatar, told AFP.
His arrest in France “could also prompt countries around the world – Western and otherwise – to undertake their own investigations. In turn, it could also prompt technology platforms to think much more seriously about the criminal content they host,” Timothy Koskie, a researcher at the University of Sydney, points out on The Conversation.
Is this a violation of “freedom”?
“What I understand is that Telegram, by refusing to cooperate, ends up being an accomplice to the offences that are committed through its service,” Florence G’Sell, a professor at the University of Lorraine and specialist in digital law, explained to AFP.
“If this is the judge’s reasoning, it goes very far. That’s where there is a debate,” she adds.
Because Pavel Durov’s arrest has sparked many international reactions. “#FreePavel,” Elon Musk wrote on X, before posting a new message in French saying “Freedom. Freedom! Freedom?”
“The arrest of Pavel Durov is an attack on the basis of human rights to communicate,” further slammed whistleblower Edward Snowden, who is based in Russia.
“I am surprised and deeply saddened that Emmanuel Macron has stooped to the point of taking hostages in order to gain access to private communications. This demeans not only France, but the entire world,” he wrote on X.
What initiatives to regulate platforms?
Since the DSA came into force in Europe, hosting service providers, including online platforms, must offer Internet users a tool allowing them to easily report illegal content.
“The notified content can then be deleted or blocked by the platform concerned. However, platforms subject to the DSA do not have a general obligation of monitoring and it is therefore always up to the users of the service to notify the content that they consider illicit,” explains to AFP Sonia Cissé, lawyer specializing in technologies, media and telecommunications at the firm Linklaters.
“Some countries, such as Pakistan, India and China, are planning to temporarily block Internet access to prevent the dissemination of certain information, if considered false,” while “the United States, on the basis of the First Amendment (of the Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of expression, Editor’s note), provides for minimal, if any, regulation of the content disseminated by the platforms,” she adds.
For Florence G’Sell, the debate is less about “the responsibility of social media platforms than about the level of protection that we want to guarantee when we use messaging services, and in particular encrypted messaging services.”
“Do we want a total level of protection against any surveillance? That is, total encryption and we can never communicate information to the authorities. Or do we lift the encryption, we force the messaging services to communicate, to the point of having a kind of diffuse surveillance? But, of course, this carries risks for the protection of private life,” she warns.