The IT Nerd

Things just got real for Pavel Durov who is the CEO of Telegram. You might recall that French law enforcement picked him up at a French airport as part of an investigation into crime on the Telegram platform. Now Wired among others is reporting that French law enforcement have laid criminal charges:

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov is forbidden from leaving French territory after being charged for complicity in running an online platform that allegedly enabled the spread of sexual images of children, creating an uncertain future for the messaging app that has become one of the world’s biggest social media platforms.

Durov was arrested on Saturday at 8 pm local time after his private jet landed at an airport near Paris. He was then detained for four days as part of an investigation into alleged criminal activity taking place on TelegramOn Wednesday evening, local time, he was indicted and forbidden from leaving the country, according to a statement released by the Paris Prosecutor. He was released under judicial supervision, the statement said, and must post a €5 million ($5.5 million) bail and report to a police station in France twice a week.

The Telegram founder was placed under formal investigation for a range of charges related to child sexual abuse material, drug trafficking, importing cryptology without prior declaration, as well as a “near-total absence” of cooperation with French authorities, Laure Beccuau, the Paris prosecutor, said on Wednesday.

French authorities noted an “almost total lack of response from Telegram to legal requests,” Beccuau noted. “This is what led JUNALCO [the National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organized Crime] to open an investigation into the possible criminal liability of this messaging service’s executives in the commission of these offenses,” she said. The preliminary investigation began in February 2024 and initial investigations were coordinated by the OFMIN, an agency set up to prevent violence against minors, her statement added.

This is significant because if the French can make these charges stick, it will send a clear message to other online platforms that they have to play ball in terms of moderating content on their platforms, as well as playing nice with law enforcement. So that begs the question if Elon Musk, who has been outspoken about this case, is paying attention? Because if not, he could be next to get picked up by French law enforcement the next time he goes to France. Perhaps he might want to start rethinking his stance on free speech because Durov is as much of a free speech fanboy as Elon is, and look where that got him.

This entry was posted on August 29, 2024 at 8:36 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Telegram. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.