Telegram CEO reportedly arrested at French airportPavel Durov, the billionaire founder and CEO of the Telegram messaging app, has been arrested at Le Bourget airport outside Paris Saturday evening, French media reported.
According to TF1 TV and BFM TV, Durov was taken into custody under a French arrest warrant as he got off his private jet after a flight from Azerbaijan.
The warrant reportedly covers "offenses related to Telegram". There was no confirmation from French officials.
The arrest was made by investigators from the National Anti-Fraud Office, part of the French Customs Department, and Durov is accused of "refusing to cooperate with authorities" and "insufficient moderation", according to the reports. The messaging app is said to allow illegal activities like drug trafficing. ———————————————-
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EuropeansUnited opinion:The defender of democracy arrested:
Irony has it Pavel Durov first fled Russia to escape prosecution for a lack of censorship, but in the end it was not Putin, but a country in the "free west" that arrested him. Not so long ago, during the Arabic spring, Telegram was hailed in the west as a liberator and defender of democracy. As moderation policies are much the same since the start, what changed?
Fear as a means to put pressure on social media to moderate
This incident does not stand alone as an attack on social media that refuse to give in to our leaders' increasing demands for moderation. For years now, the main stream media has been bombarding the public with opinions on how moderation is necessary for our safety. To prevent riots, dangerous desinformation, extreme right/left wing propaganda, child abuse and so on. That people are easily fooled and will believe the earth is flat without guidance. An invisible enemy will put dangerous thoughts in our susceptible minds.
Double standardsIf Telegram is responsible for drug traffic, are the energy companies responsible for growing weed? The logistic companies for distributing drugs? Facebook is used for fraude on a large scale, yet they go free. We can only guess at the reason for the double standards, as the only difference is they "moderate". And of course much of that "moderation" is based on information delivered by government and official instances.
Emancipation, not censorshipWe from Europeans United, for as long as we can, will row against this current. We don't believe in "moderation" but emancipation. We believe it is UP TO THE PEOPLE to judge what they believe, not the government, not a (social) media company. Moderation has become an excuse word for ordinary censorship. Because in the end, that is what it is when opinions are denied: censorship. When did allowing other opinions become radical? And talking to people you disagree with extremism? In China, where censorship is the norm, criminal activities are rampant, yet they don't make the news. Is this really where we want to go in the name of fact checking?
Algorithms of large social media platforms, not ideology, lie at the base of radicalisation and polarisation, and these problems cannot be solved by censorship. The cure proposed is worse than the disease. If they were serious about polarisation and extremism, they would force Facebook and others to make their profitable algorithms transparent before censoring. But for now, money and private interest rule. Censorship, and apparently even arrests, become the norm.
We cannot let this pass. We will not let this pass. EuropeansUnited is talking with other organisers to see what actions we can undertake to protest peacefully against this outrage.
United we stand!https://t.me/europeansunited
