Social media Telegram CEO, Pavel Durov, who was arrested in Paris, is now out on bail. In his first Telegram post he commented upon how odd the French authorities were in the affair. The usual procedure was for the authorities to contact the social media company about complaints, and Durov had even set up a "hot line" for them to do so. "If a country is unhappy with an internet service, the established practice is to start a legal action against the service itself," he wrote.
"Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a misguided approach."
Here I think Elon Musk was more on the money than Durov here, although Durov may have been under restraint of what he could say, or thought it prudent not to go too hard. Surely this is nothing but lawfare, as is seen in the US against President Trump. The censorship industrial complex wants to totally control social media to prevent criticisms stirring up the natives as the foundation stones of a technocratic, dystopian New World Order is put into place. Durov's arrest was just the start of the way they are going to go, and Musk is the key target. If he goes to Paris, he gets arrested and jailed too.
"The founder of the Telegram messaging app, Pavel Durov, under investigation in France, has said that French authorities should have approached his company with their complaints rather than detaining him, calling the arrest '"misguided".
Durov, writing on his Telegram channel early on Friday in his first public comments since his detention last month, denied any suggestion the app was an "anarchic paradise".
The Russian-born multi-billionaire said the investigation into the app was surprising in that French authorities had access to a "hot line" he had helped set up and they could have contacted Telegram's EU representative at any time.
"If a country is unhappy with an internet service, the established practice is to start a legal action against the service itself," he wrote.
"Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a misguided approach."
Telegram, he said, was not perfect, but "the claims in some media that Telegram is some sort of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue," he wrote. "We take down millions of harmful posts and channels every day."
Durov, now a French national, was detained late last month in France amid an investigation into crimes related to child sexual abuse images, drug trafficking and fraudulent transactions associated with the app.
He has been charged by the French judiciary for allegedly allowing criminal activity on the messaging app but avoided being detained in jail before the case is heard with a €5m bail. He was granted release on condition that he report to a police station twice a week and remain in France.
The charges against Durov include complicity in the spread of sexual images of children and a litany of other alleged violations on the messaging app.
His surprise arrest has put a spotlight on the criminal liability of Telegram, the popular app with about 1 billion users, and has sparked debate over free speech and government censorship.