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Telegram CEO Pavel Durov's Arrest Is Part of a Global War on Free Speech
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Reason
Posted: September 4th, 2024
https://reason.com/2024/08/28/telegram-ceo-pavel-durovs-arre...
Days after the French government arrested Pavel Durov, CEO of the encrypted messaging app Telegram, for failing to monitor and restrict communications as demanded by officials in Paris, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that his company, which owns Facebook, was subjected to censorship pressures by U.S. officials. Durov's arrest, then, stands as ... part of a concerted effort by governments, including those of nominally free countries, to control speech. Durov's alleged crime is offering encrypted communications services to everybody, including those who engage in illegality or just anger the powers that be. If bad people occasionally use encrypted apps such as Telegram, they use phones and postal services, too. The qualities that make communications systems useful to those battling authoritarianism are also helpful to those with less benign intentions. There's no way to offer security to one group without offering it to everybody. Given that Telegram was founded by a free speech champion who fled his home country after refusing to monitor and censor speech for the authorities, it's very easy to suspect that Pavel Durov has run afoul of authoritarians operating under a different flag. The Twitter Files and the Facebook Files revealed serious pressure brought to bear by the U.S. government on social media companies to stifle dissenting views and inconvenient (to the political class) news stories.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on censorship and government corruption from reliable major media sources.
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