Elon Musk Intervenes After Telegram

CEO Pavel Durov Was Arrested

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Elon Musk also commented on the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France on Saturday (24/6) local time. The billionaire launched sharp criticism by calling the arrest a violation of freedom of speech.

“Liberté Liberté! Liberté?” Musk wrote on his personal X account.

“Dangerous times,” he said in another post. Musk also echoed the hashtag #FreePavel when he shared a video showing Durov praising Musk’s movement to uphold freedom of speech in an interview with Tucker Carlson earlier this year.

“It’s important to support freedom of speech, especially in countries that prioritize censorship,” Musk said on his X.

Musk also reposted a tweet from Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski. Pavlovski said France had gone too far by arresting Durov, quoted from BusinessInsider, Monday (26/8/2024).

After taking over Twitter and changing its name to X, Musk has repeatedly voiced the importance of freedom of speech.

However, Musk himself has a track record of silencing opinions that criticize him. For example, he once fired employees who disagreed with him, and blocked accounts that criticized him.

Reasons for Pavel Durov’s Arrest

There has been no official confirmation from France regarding the arrest. However, two French police sources and one Russian source said Durov was arrested shortly after arriving at Le Bourget airport on a private jet from Azerbaijan.

Before the jet arrived, police had known he was on the passenger list and immediately moved to arrest him because he was the subject of an arrest warrant in France.

So, why was Durov arrested? This arrest is part of a preliminary investigation led by OFMIN (Office for the Prevention of Violence against Minors) France.

The agency has issued an arrest warrant for Durov, citing charges that include money laundering, drug trafficking, and the distribution of child sexual abuse content on Telegram.

The lack of moderation on Telegram and alleged use by criminal groups are the problems.

Local news outlets BFMTV and TF1 reported that the investigation focused on potential exploitation of Telegram by criminal entities, as well as Durov’s alleged failure to implement effective measures to prevent illegal activity on Telegram.

Initially, Telegram resembled other chat apps, but has since evolved into a social network in its own right.

In addition to communicating with each other, the platform allows users to join groups of up to 200,000 people and create broadcast “channels” that others can follow and comment on.

With 950 million monthly active users, Telegram has been seen as a major source of information, and disinformation, about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to The Guardian. Telegram offers end-to-end encrypted messaging and allows users to create channels to spread information to followers.

The app is hugely popular in the former Soviet Union and has been widely used by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as well as politicians across Ukraine, to release information about the war.

The app is also one of the few places where Russians can get unfiltered information about the conflict, after the Kremlin tightened media controls following the massive invasion.

The seemingly unbreakable encryption has made Telegram a haven for extremists and conspiracy theorists.

Central European media outlet VSquare said Telegram has become a mainstay of Russian propaganda, both far-left and far-right, QAnon in the US, and conspiracy theorists. Telegram has even been called an ecosystem for radicalization.

Based in Dubai, Telegram was founded by Russian-born Durov. He left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on his VK social media platform, which he had sold.

Durov is currently based in Dubai, where Telegram is headquartered, and holds French and United Arab Emirates (UAE) citizenship.

He said he had tried living in Berlin, London, Singapore, and San Francisco before settling on Dubai, which he praised for its business environment and “neutrality.”

In the UAE, Telegram faces little pressure to moderate its content, as Western governments crack down on hate speech, disinformation, the spread of child abuse imagery, and other illegal content.

SOURCE : CNBC INDONESIA