The recent arrest of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov in France was purportedly because organised criminals are using his platform. Of course, holding a CEO responsible for users on his app is absurd. What next? Charging the owners of internet service providers? Mobile phone companies? Where do you draw the line?
Under French law, suspects must be released within 96 hours, but Durov’s detainment was extended by a French magistrate and he was denied access to the Russian consulate. My guess is Durov is not being questioned about alleged crimes and instead being told: Here is what we want and if you don’t give it to us, there will be consequences.
If Durov gives western intelligence agencies full access to his platform, or sells Telegram to a western-friendly billionaire, the charges against him will be dropped. They’re pretending this is about protecting children (isn’t every attack on civil liberties?), but it’s about western leaders protecting themselves from accountability.
If France wasn’t going after Telegram, it would be another western country. Perhaps, next we will see Germany go after Twitter or the UK go after Substack. It just depends on who can find the best excuse to demand more censorship.
As far as I understand, Telegram has only ever blocked channels that publicly call for violence, and private channels have always been kept private, but your government does not want you to have private conversations. Big Brother wants to be watching you at all times. Shit, they’d put a camera in your bedroom if they could.
“Arguing that you don’t care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say” - Edward Snowden
Notice how we can’t prosecute CEOs when companies do something terrible that crashes the economy or costs human lives, but we can if they don’t let the government spy on you? It’s unclear what crime Durov is even supposed to have committed here. Surely such investigations should be taken up with the company?
France let slip the real reason for Durov’s arrest is lack of “moderation” on Telegram and moderation is another word for censorship. The US managed to turn TikTok into an overly-moderated hellhole, and may yet ban the platform if they can’t force its sale to a westerner. Telegram is getting the TikTok treatment.
I understand Caitlin Johnstone was banned from TikTok for alleged hate speech, and I had my second video removed for the same reason so I gave up on the platform. Our rulers want dissidents to give up on every platform. They’ve already hijacked Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, and next is Telegram. Imagine being naive enough to think this is about organised crime or child safety.
The Wall Street Journal has reported that Instagram has a huge problem with accounts linked to child abuse, but Mark Zuckerberg is not targeted because he complies with requests to censor political speech. You see how it works?
There are claims that Telegram belongs to the Russian government, but Russia banned Telegram for three years because it refused to comply with censorship requests or give Russian intelligence access to encrypted communications. In other words, Telegram is pissing off the Russian government as much as it’s pissing off western governments.
Telegram left Russia for Dubai due to censorship requests, but Durov now stands accused of meeting Putin in Azerbaijan. Now it’s entirely possible Russia has captured Telegram, but that’s exactly what the West is trying to do. Worst case scenario, Durov is guilty of complying with Russian authorities who were doing exactly what French authorities are doing. We could end up in a situation where governments around the world demand control of your platform and treat compliance with a government they don’t like as a crime. How is that workable?
At the end of the day, they’re all authoritarians. The problem is Telegram uses end-to-end encryption that governments can’t access and they’re mad about that. The appeal of Telegram to users is that it will protect your data at any cost, but governments around the world think you shouldn’t be allowed privacy. They think your data is their data.
If you’ve ever posted something they don’t like, they want to look into your Telegram channels, snoop through your Twitter DMs, trawl through your Facebook Messenger, record any private message they want, and keep records of your associates in case you become problematic.
If you feel comfortable about this, it means you are not upsetting bad people who are doing terrible things. I’m looking at you, centrists who are gloating about Durov’s arrest.
Not only are they hard at work smearing Durov with the most ludicrous accusations, but they are smearing anyone who has spoken in support of him. They are using the establishment’s strategy of stigmatisation to scare people into silence. And when that doesn’t work, they’re talking about more arrests. Many are now gleefully calling for the arrest of Musk.
You don’t have to be a fan of Musk to find posts like this disturbing:
We are witnessing the biggest attack on free speech in human history. Governments want the ability to not just spy on everyone around the globe, but decide what they can and can’t say online. This is the easiest prediction I’ll ever make: they are not gonna stop at Telegram.
If we continue down this path, every government is going to abuse its power until they’ve got access to your data and social media platforms are dealing with so many censorship orders, we end up seeing no political posts. At that point, social media will probably die and this is probably the ultimate goal.
From our leaders’ perspective, it’s about self-preservation, because they are facing the risk of prosecution for their atrocities. Social media has shone a spotlight on war criminals who are realising they can’t get away with this stuff much longer, unless they act.
The wave of censorship is not just about attacking social media platforms, it’s about attacking journalists, bloggers, writers, and ordinary members of the public. The arrest of Richard Medhurst was just the latest in a series of arrests in the UK for social media posts the government doesn’t like. It’s hard to look at the pattern and not conclude the West is embracing mass surveillance and authoritarian control. Remember this the next time they fight a war in the name of “western values” and “liberal democracy”.The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
Re: They're not gonna stop at Telegram, it will be Twitter and Substack next
I'm told that there are companies currently working on AI applications that will intercept 'hate speech' and 'fake news' before the video or textual uploads are even complete. Real-time goalkeeping in the service of the corporate state.
Soon the internet will be the go-to resource for Government-approved narratives and kitten videos, and not much else...
M.
Zines, on paper, circulated person to person---that's the future.
on August 26, 2024, 7:22 pm