Pavel Durov Isn't a Free Speech Martyr
Pavel Durov Isn't a Free Speech Martyr
Can critics like Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson grapple with the fact that the Telegram founder was detained in an investigation that includes grave crimes related to child pornography?
Immediately after news broke of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov being taken into French custody at a Paris airport on August 24, critics decried the action as an attack on free speech. Elon Musk tweeted "#FreePavel," and former U.S. government contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked classified information from the N.S.A. in 2013 and now lives in Moscow, called it "an assault on the basic human rights of speech and association." Telegram combines a messaging and calling app, a news feed where channels can broadcast to their followers, and the ability to create private groups of up to 200,000 members. It is particularly popular in Russia and Ukraine and is a major source of information about the war.
On August 26, French prosecutors said in a statement that Durov, a Russian-born citizen of France and the U.A.E., was detained in the context of a broad investigation involving the possession and distribution of child pornography, selling narcotics, and fraudulent activity. The charges also included a "refusal to communicate, at the request of competent authorities, information or documents necessary for carrying out and operating interceptions allowed by law." On August 28, French authorities declared Durov under formal investigation, and freed him from custody. His bail is set at 5 million euros and he is not allowed to leave France.
Despite claims that Durov's arrest is an infringement on free speech, Telegram's terms of service implicitly allow illegal activity. Telegram does expressly prohibit scamming and spamming, illegal pornographic content, and the promotion of violence in its public forums. However, the platform makes another promise: it will not process requests to take down illegal content in its massive private groups. Telegram further promises users that it can evade government requests by scattering their data across borders, saying that "several court orders from different jurisdictions are required to force us to give up any data."
It's not surprising then, that Telegram has become a hotbed for all kinds of illegal activities, ranging from small-time drug buys to deepfake pornography and the Capitol riots. Investigative journalists from the Estonian news outlet Delfi ran an experiment: they created a new Telegram account and started looking for a job. One of the journalists said they were offered to: "1) carry migrants from [the] Belarusian border to Germany, 2) to scam Swiss out of their savings, 3) launder money by allowing unknown people use our bank accounts, 4) different drug related gigs, 5) send a photo of our penis for 2500 USD (we rejected)." The Stanford Internet Observatory said in 2023 that commercial activity surrounding child pornography appears to be taking place in private groups on the platform. (The Stanford researchers also said that Telegram's public channels were much less moderated for illegal content than other platforms.)
Unlike Signal, Meta-owned WhatsApp, or Apple's iMessage, messages between Telegram users are not end-to-end encrypted by default. (To gain this level of security, both users must enable the "secret chat" feature.) That means that Telegram and Durov are more vulnerable to legal scrutiny than other platforms that don't retain the contents of their user's messages. In addition, other platforms devote substantially more resources to removing illegal content. (Telegram said in an August 25 statement that it was "absurd" to hold a platform owner responsible for "abuses" on its platform.)
How are free-speech absolutists like Musk reckoning with the fact that the charges include illegal activities like child pornography? For the most part, they're not. On X, Musk blocked Christo Grozev, an investigative journalist and former associate of Alexei Navalny, for bringing this point up.
However, many other former Navalny associates -- as well as the Kremlin -- have moved to defend Durov, albeit for very different reasons. It's somewhat understandable that exiled Russian dissidents would defend Durov, who in 2018, publicly refused to hand over the platform's encryption keys to Russian security services. However, the Kremlin's support of Telegram is cynical -- nobody should think the Kremlin is a defender of free speech. Until 2020, Russian authorities were trying to shut down the app. Russian authorities announced a compromise with Telegram; for a government that faces no competitive elections, Telegram is useful for monitoring elite disagreements and popular discontent. At the outset of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia blocked Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter; in recent weeks, Russian authorities have throttled YouTube and blocked the encrypted-messaging app Signal. Moreover, Russia has imprisoned hundreds on charges of violating wartime censorship laws.Â
Rather, the Kremlin sees the Durov arrest as yet another way the West is waging war on Russia. It is likely afraid that Western intelligence might find a backdoor into the private data that the app holds. The Kremlin's advocacy for Durov also places it on the side of influential Western public figures like Musk and Tucker Carlson, who have been receptive to Kremlin messaging. (Durov gave a rare interview to Carlson in April.)
It's easy to understand why free-speech absolutists would instinctively rally around Durov on social media, where posting before knowing the facts is all too common. But illegal activity and free speech can and should be separated: authoritarian governments like Russia have often conflated them and justified crackdowns on free speech because of illegal activity.