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2024-08-26 Europe
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'Darkness over the Free World': How Pavel Durov Fell into the Trap of Principles
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
See also here. Responding to that and this story from yesterday.
by Kirill Velesov
[REGNUM] The arrest of billionaire Pavel Durov in France has once again raised questions about the methods by which various states gain control over media platforms.
Durov owns the Telegram messenger, which is used by about 900 million people per month. This platform ranks 8th in the ranking of the most popular social networks in the world. India leads in the number of users of this resource.
Telegram has over 1.4 million channels and 140,000 chats, through which over 167 billion messages are sent daily. The company is valued at $30 billion, and its Dubai office employs 30 people.
The passenger of his own private jet Embraer Legacy 600 fell into the hands of French justice at the Paris Le Bourget airport, at about nine o'clock in the evening Moscow time. The French TV channel TF1 told the world about Durov's arrest.
According to him, the warrant was issued by the National Directorate of the French Judicial Police. The bracelets on the arrested man's wrists were snapped by the air transport gendarmerie.
Interestingly, Flightradar24 claims that Durov's plane attempted to change course and head south of the country. The businessman was put on the wanted list shortly before landing at the Paris airport, so it is unclear whether this was a failed escape attempt or Durov decided to go all in, realizing that he would not be able to escape.
The Telegram cryptocurrency reacted sensitively to the arrest: the Toncoin rate fell by 20% in the first hours after the news from the Paris airport appeared.
Among the crimes incriminated to Durov are complicity in terrorism, fraud and pedophilia. According to French law, a judge can imprison a defendant in these criminal proceedings for a term of 20 to 25 years. Durov, by the way, will celebrate his 40th birthday on October 10. It is doubtful that this will happen at large: apparently, he is facing a lengthy trial.
VERSION NUMBER ONE
The thing is that the brainchild of the Durov brothers - and Nikolai, the elder brother of the detainee, played the first violin in the development of the platform code - turned out to be too tough for cyber policemen around the world. The secret of users' correspondence is not available to third parties.
This is where the leading version of the arrest comes from: Western liberal elites want to take control of an independent digital platform.
The attitude towards what is happening was formulated in an indicative way by the American journalist and one of the main enemies of the liberal establishment, Tucker Carlson : “Tonight Pavel Durov will spend the night in a French prison, this is a living warning to all platform owners who do not want to censor the truth. <…> The darkness is quickly gathering over the former free world.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova recalled how Western NGOs called on Russian authorities to stop creating obstacles to Telegram’s work after the adoption of the “Yarovaya Law” on July 1, 2018. Moreover, Durov remained at large while Russian authorities restricted the platform’s operation in Russia.
"Do you think this time they will appeal to Paris and demand Durov's release or will they swallow their tongues?" Zakharova wrote.
According to Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, Durov remains Russian, and therefore unpredictable and dangerous. That is, there are no "good" Russians for the West and there never will be. Medvedev warned Pavel about problems with the law in any country due to his refusal to cooperate with the authorities.
Durov called his refusal a "principled" position. How far his principled stand will extend now in the face of a long prison term is not yet known.
In general, Russian politicians condemned Durov's arrest, seeing political motives in the actions of the French authorities. And State Duma Deputy Speaker Vyacheslav Davankov called on Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to seek the release of the newly-minted political prisoner.
But will this stir up the remnants of patriotism in the libertarian Durov, who declared back in 2014 that he had no intention of returning to Russia, but ended up in a clash with the West?
SEARCHING FOR CONNECTIONS WITH RUSSIA
Another version has appeared in the community of Russian military experts. Supporters of this version claim that it was the secure Telegram that became the main messenger during the special military operation, since Russian military personnel exchange information there.
"You shouldn't fly to France when most of the combat command of the Russian Armed Forces is sitting in your midst. They might ask for cooperation," says military historian Ilya Kramnik.
However, this version still seems secondary, since the military has other communication channels.
The plane from which the hero of Sunday's news agenda stepped off had arrived from Baku. This gave rise to speculation about his possible meeting there with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Then the interest of Western intelligence services in checking Durov's possible connections with the Russian military-political leadership becomes understandable.
And, of course, despite all the accusatory pathos about the actions of the world behind the scenes, it must be acknowledged that the messenger has more than once become a tool in the hands of those whose intentions were predatory and disgusting.
It is enough to recall the role of the Telegram channel in recruiting terrorists who carried out the massacre in Crocus City. The resource's moderators were members of the Islamic State of Khorasan, which is banned in Russia. Then, the lives of 143 people were tragically cut short. However, there is no answer to the question of what extent the owner of Telegram is responsible.
Perhaps he will be offered to sacrifice the principles of an independent "man of peace" and cooperate with those who organized this arrest by changing the messenger's program code. And it may well be that Durov's team foresaw this development of events and will make any manipulation of the messenger impossible.
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