Mainstream Media Pushes Narrative That Telegram Co-Founder is Liable for User Content

With the arrest of Telegram co-founder, Pavlov Durov, and scant details, it seems that the mainstream media has started pushing ridiculous narratives about the arrest.

The arrest of Pablov Durov, co-founder of Telegram, has ultimately led to more questions then it answers. We reported on the arrest earlier this week and, at the time, the arrest felt like a rather out of the blue occurrence. The founder of a large platform was suddenly arrested and detained without explanation. This led to a pretty big question: was Durov arrested for something he did or were authorities arresting him because of user activity on his platform? The former could theoretically be something that isn’t something to be too concerned whereas the latter is cause for very serious concern.

The next day, we reported on the actual statement for why French authorities arrested Durov. The statement was extremely light on details and fails to really answer any of the major questions surrounding his arrest. Was he arrested for something he personally did or was he arrested for the activities of his users? The arrest details ultimately didn’t answer any of that.

One thing we have noted already is how mainstream media, in the void of information, began pushing different narratives such as how Telegram was a “controversial” platform with little details to support that theory. Others began painting this debate as supporters being Russian and critics being North American – something that is especially bizarre given Russia’s previous attempts to block the platform outright.

While there aren’t any more answers today as there have been yesterday, it seems that the mainstream media decided to fill the void of facts with their own idle speculation. For instance, Le Monde continued pushing the narrative that this arrest was just a normal part of going after people who don’t moderate content:

Above all, many of the criticisms leveled at France after Durov’s arrest are, whether in good or bad faith, aimed at the wrong target. Contrary to Tucker Carlson’s claims, the Telegram CEO was not arrested for refusing to “censor” political opinions. The French investigation does not concern “opinion crimes,” but quite standard offenses, including the dissemination of child pornography. As in any democracy, Durov is presumed innocent and will have the opportunity to defend himself in a public trial, should he be indicted.

Except that arresting a leader of a platform for the actions of users using the platform is not normal. For democracies such as the United States, there is a thing called “Section 230” which lays out the fact that users are responsible for their own speech, not the people who run the web service. To suggest otherwise is completely foolish.

The article in question goes to great lengths at trying to make this out to be a fight between Russia and the right wing and western democracy, going so far as to paint supporters of Durov as Trump supporters:

It’s not all that surprising that Russia − a country where the mere exercise of journalism can lead to arrest − should seek to instrumentalize the situation in a skillful display of accusatory inversion. What is perhaps a little more so is the fact that the country finds itself aligned with some of Silicon Valley’s wealthiest investors and entrepreneurs. Apart from Elon Musk − who considers European free speech laws to be “censorship” and seeks as much freedom from them as possible − leading investors such as Shaun Maguire and Paul Graham, both supporters of Donald Trump, have criticized Durov’s arrest.

Paul Graham has criticized the piece, pointing out that he is not a Donald Trump supporter:

According to Le Monde I am now a Trump supporter. You'd think they'd have at least taken 10 seconds to try a Twitter search. pic.twitter.com/r5L9Gp95WU

— Paul Graham (@paulg) August 27, 2024

According to Le Monde I am now a Trump supporter. You’d think they’d have at least taken 10 seconds to try a Twitter search.

Sometime after the criticism was posted, it seems that Le Monde has since silently corrected the article which now shows this:

It’s not all that surprising that Russia − a country where the mere exercise of journalism can lead to arrest − should seek to instrumentalize the situation in a skillful display of accusatory inversion. What is perhaps a little more so is the fact that the country finds itself aligned with some of Silicon Valley’s wealthiest investors and entrepreneurs. Apart from Elon Musk − who considers European free speech laws to be “censorship” and seeks as much freedom from them as possible − leading investors such as Shaun Maguire, a Donald Trump supporter, and Paul Graham have criticized Durov’s arrest.

Yeah, good job Le Monde. Real good job.

What is so striking in all of this is the rush to try and paint this as a political fight between Russia, right wingers, and western democracies and left leaning political supporters instead of asking the real question like “why was Durov arrested?” Instead, there seems to be narratives being pushed like how Silicon Valley is supposedly tightly connected with Russian oligarchs for some reason.

Others in the mainstream media seemed content in trying to normalize this idea that platform owners are responsible for the actions of their users. This is deeply problematic thinking on a number of levels including the practical implications of running a larger web service. If your web service sees users generate hundreds of thousands of messages every day, you, as the owner, aren’t going to rifle through every single one looking for criminal activity. It is physically impossible even if the owner wanted to do that. What’s more, if owners are liable for the activity of their users, platforms would have no practical way of running legally.

That leads to offshore services filling the entrepreneurial void which would make it far more difficult for authorities to carry out investigations of any kind online. You’re not going to stop the speech you don’t like, so what would you rather have? Platforms that exist in North America and Europe, generating billions in tax revenues collectively for western governments or offshoring those platforms to countries like China, Russia, or some third world country where they generate that revenue? Remember, there are always going to be a contingent of people who would rather not have their daily lives tracked by government online – a very understandable position in the grand scheme of things. What’s more, concealing ones identity and/or using encryption is not indicative of criminal activity in the first place.

It’s this basic logic and common sense that mainstream media seems to have little interest in covering. Instead, for some, if there was criminal activity happening on a given platform, it makes sense to arrest the owner that likely had nothing to do with that activity in the first place. An example of this narrative in action is this Financial Times article:

Telegram chief executive Pavel Durov has spent the past decade positioning his messaging app as a politically neutral safe space away from government interference.

“In some markets, Telegram is one of the few remaining free platforms where people can express themselves,” Durov said in a rare interview with the Financial Times earlier this year, his first in seven years, boasting of its use by protesters, human rights advocates and refugees.

He appeared relaxed, however, over the rise of legislation worldwide targeting the power of tech companies, as well as growing concerns about the spread of harmful content online. “We are confident that we can adapt,” said Durov. “We don’t expect any significant challenges going forward.”

That calculation finally backfired spectacularly on Saturday, when the Russian-born entrepreneur, who is now a French-Emirati citizen, was arrested upon touching down at an airport outside Paris.

French prosecutors have said the move is part of a wide-ranging investigation that began in July into a failure to moderate alleged criminal activity on the messaging app, including the spread of child sexual abuse content.

Durov has yet to be charged but can be held by investigators until Wednesday night.

The arrest, the most drastic attempt yet to hold a platform chief accountable for content, has thrust the fate of the elusive billionaire into the hands of the French judiciary at a time of highly polarised debate over social media’s responsibility for free speech versus online safety.

No, if the arrest had more to do with the users activity on the platform, then arresting the co-founder for those actions is just a really stupid idea all around and a clear cut example of authorities attacking free speech in general. If someone posted an inflammatory comment in the comments section in the Financial Times and a government decides to arrest the owner of the Financial Times for it, you bet the Financial Times would be changing their tune real quick and screaming “free speech!” The simple reality is that if someone posts something illegal on a given web service, you go after the user posting that illegal content, not the owner.

If you thought that those comments by the Financial Times were bad, it gets even worse.

To some, Durov’s arrest has been a long time coming. The platform has achieved rapid growth to 1bn users since being launched in 2013, leading its founder to suggest it was on the path to a lucrative IPO.

Yet online safety researchers have long been sounding the alarm that Telegram has become a breeding ground for criminals, hackers, disinformation pushers, conspiracy theorists and extremists fleeing the tighter restrictions on rivals such as Meta’s Facebook and Google’s YouTube.

Yes, some moron really did write that. Meta and YouTube, among their critics, have long been accused of having a hands off approach to moderation (no matter how misinformed those accusations are). Yet, somehow, there aren’t calls to arrest CEOs of both platforms. Yet, somehow, Telegram is different? Again, none of this justifies arresting the co-founder in the first place, but somehow, that is OK with the few people the authors manage to round up and say how this whole thing was a “long time coming”:

“On Telegram it seems to be actual crimes going on, so it was also mind-boggling how much they seemed to get away with this,” said Megan Squire, the deputy director for data analytics at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project.

Squire, who monitors more than 500 out of what she describes as about 30,000 extremist groups on Telegram, said the platform had not attracted the attention of lawmakers sooner because it was based in Dubai and self-funded by Durov, who owned a multibillion-dollar crypto fortune.

But, she added, the hands-off approach to moderation “finally caught up with them”.

Again, disagreeing with the moderation still doesn’t justify the arrest. Not even close.

In the midst of trying to normalize the idea of arresting tech entrepreneurs for the actions of others, it seems that French authorities are wanting to arrest the co-founders brother on top of it all. From Politico:

French authorities issued arrest warrants for Telegram CEO Pavel Durov and his co-founder brother Nikolai in March, according to a French administrative document seen exclusively by POLITICO.

The document indicates the French undercover investigation into Telegram is wider and began months earlier than previously known. The case revolves around Telegram’s refusal to cooperate with a French police inquiry into child sex abuse.

The arrest warrants were issued after the messaging platform gave “no answer” to an earlier judicial request to identify a Telegram user, according to the document, which was shared with POLITICO by a person directly involved in the case.

The document also stresses “Telegram’s almost non-existent cooperation” with both French and European authorities in other cases.

Warrants for Pavel and his brother Nikolai, the platform’s co-founder, were issued on March 25 over charges including “complicity in possessing, distributing, offering or making available pornographic images of minors, in an organized group.” French media had previously reported the probe was opened in July.

Yeah, let’s arrest everyone. Make martyrs of them all, because that solves everything these days.

Obviously, arresting the co-founder doesn’t appear to be solving anything, so what do these authorities expect to solve by arresting his brother? All you’re doing is arresting random people at this point in time. Unless they have a case against the two people in question where they legitimately broke any laws personally, I struggle to think how any of this is even close to being productive.

I don’t know about you, but it seems like this whole story is getting dumber and dumber. There seems to be an inherent technophobia among mainstream journalists and seeing these arrests gets them excited because they think they are seeing another platform going down in flames. I don’t know why they think taking down platforms solves anything, but I doubt they think much further than their immediate objective. It’s possible that they think that once the platforms have been shut down, we can go back to the bad old days of getting the news exclusively from newspapers and broadcasting stations – something that is just not going to happen. Instead, the only thing the media is accomplishing is militarizing the internet which is absolutely not a can of worms they want to open by any stretch of the imagination. We’ve seen what happens when file-sharing is militarized. It doesn’t end well for those attacking it. It’s a bit of history the media doesn’t want to repeat with respect to general freedom of expression.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.