Telegram Founder DETAINED In France

let's move on to a very terrifying story and a very uh troubling situation let's put this up there on the screen uh telegram Chief Pavel durav has been arrested in France so uh pavl durov is a fascinating figure uh very elusive billionaire who had a dual French Russian citizen he a longtime Tech entrepreneur had fled Russia actually for refusing to capitulate to Russian demands that he have censorship on their social media he's been living in Dubai now for quite some time it's unclear exactly why he was in France but he was there on a flight private flight from aeran that landed in Paris and it appears that he has been taken into custody by French authorities keep in mind he is a French citizen or a dual French Russian national now according to French media he has been detained uh by the office which is quote preventing violence against miners who had previously issued an arrest warrant for durav in a preliminary investigation quote into alleged offenses including fraud drug trafficking cyber bullying organized crime promotion of terrorism he is accused of failing to take action to curb the criminal use of his platform the investigator said quote enough of telegram's impunity adding that they were surprised that he came to Paris knowing that he is a wanted man now this goes back to the very ethos of telegram itself which does not believe in censorship part of the reason that durov has basically had to live in Dubai had to flee Russia had to basically flee the United States and any of these EU jurisdictions is that all of these governments are begging him to censor content that they don't like and that's one of the things I hate the most about the discourse on telegram they're like oh it's Pro Russian well yeah a lot of Russians use it you know who else uses it the ukrainians and that's why the Russians they also don't like telegram they want to penetrate telegram that's the other thing the NSA and the US uh Services they want to penetrate telegram because they want to see what the Russian are up to everybody has a reason for hating Telegram and that just tells me they're doing something right and durov himself is genuinely committed to the principles of free speech not bowing to censorship and his product works as a result he has 900 million users on the platform it's one of the largest social networks in the world you know it may not be all that popular here but for those of us who follow foreign stuff I'm you know part of a couple telegram channels and others I've never had any thought I'm like that this at the very least is being spied on you know this channel and otherwise and so when we see him blatantly get arrested it's a very chilling effect again I don't know why he was in Paris and there's a lot of even the investigators L man said they're like we don't even know why he would come here when he has an arrest warrant I don't know what the you know I mean he is a friend citizen at the same time he has a right to defend himself at least you know allegedly but his detention has now been extended Crystal originally it was like a 48 hour detention now been extended to 96 hours we have heard nothing from him and he remains inside a French custody nonetheless it's very chilling because it comes on the heels of a lot of the Crackdown going on in the UK right now where they're imprisoning a lot of people for you know look if you're a rioter and you're genuinely committing violence fine but in the UK they don't think that way they're like oh if you encouraged rioting boom you're you might as well have participated you are going to jail for in some cases longer than they have so they also by the way one of the dings against him in France is oh his his telegram helped organize the far-right protesters in the UK so clearly there is a major chilling effect here and uh I'm I'm very concerned about what happens with paval durov it's a very concerning development there's no doubt about it telegram has become extremely important um for uh you pointed out you know Russians uh like proar military Russians organizing there uh the ukrainians organizing there um some of the horrible atrocities that we've seen coming out of Gaza have come because um IDF soldiers were posting them yeah that's right they were on Telegram and actually we learned that the Israeli government was behind some of those telegram channels that were posting some of these unbelievable Horrors so I mean yeah awful that they're posting this stuff but also important that the world was able to gain an insight into what is going on there and the way these IDF soldiers were super proud of it and those are just a couple of instances so you know anytime a country moves to block telegram it's a very concerning development because it has become so important for these dissident channels um he's certainly you know is a I I think it's fair to describe him as like a radical anti-censorship activist um at the same time I I do want to sound a note of caution I I want to know more about the details of what they're alleging here and what he actually was arrested for and I also will say you know I uh I believe in the conception of free speech as embodied by you know the American Bill of Rights which isn't totally unfettered for like posting threats MH not acceptable posting Kitty porn not acceptable posting revenge porn in my opinion not acceptable and there have been times when telegram has failed to moderate content like that which I do think should be moderated so I just want to add a little bit of nuance into the conversation of like I don't actually support a platform where you literally can post literally anything because again I think the child born thing is like the most clear example but I also would use those other ones as um as instances like credible threats you should be posting as well but the fact that he's been you know targeted arrested here is something that any one of us who was concerned about Free Speech concerned about censorship should certainly be paying very close attention to and I want to know a lot more details about here's my if they had him on Kitty porn they would say it all right they would we would all know all of us would know also this channel just got nuked for us even saying those words Out Loud by the YouTube algorithm so I guess everybody enjoy this on the podcast but whatever that's what we have to do here if they had the proof they would have released that you know every thing that they are releasing so far is that they're taking steps to cut back disinformation uh the sharing of links and Bots you know uh that they're looking at the exch the office also by the way that that detained him like I said has nothing to do with the porn child pornography allegedly it has to do with um you know with terrorism and with criminal criminal Enterprises that are uh organizing there on the platform now and this is the other problem this is Europe they don't have free speech in Europe they literally you're basically guilty before proven innocent in France they can they can take your citizenship away and throw your ass in jail if they want to and they really don't have to prove anything in their judicial system so they need to release the evidence at the very least um he has previously it seems traveled to Berlin San Francisco London Singapore and other cities before making Dubai uh the headquarters he actually gave an interesting interview with Tucker Carlson just a few months ago where he talked about one of the reasons why he had to leave the United States let's take a Liston we got too much attention from the the FBI the security agencies whenever we came to the US so to give you an example last time I was in the US I brought an engineer that is working for telegram and there was an attempt to secretly hire my engineer behind my back by cyber security off officers or agents whatever they are called the US government to hire your engineer that's my understanding that's what he told me to write code for them or to break into telegram they were curious to learn which open- source libraries are integrated to the telegram's app you know on the client side and they were trying to persuade him to use certain open- Source tools that he would then integrate into the telegram's code that in my understanding would serve as back doors would allow the US government to spy on people who use telegram the US government or maybe any other government because a backd door is a back door regardless of who is using it one time I was uh having my breakfast like 9:00 a.m. and uh the FBI showed up my house that I was renting and uh that was quite surprising and I thought you know we're getting too much attention here uh it's probably not the best environment to run why would they had you committed a crime no they were interested to learn more about telegram they knew I you know left Russia they they knew what we were doing but they wanted details and my understanding is that they wanted to establish a relationship to in a way control telegram better see this is why durov is very inconvenient for them cuz put this up there on the screen he left Russia because the Russians wanted to pressure him to censor the social media Network that he founded in the company which is very popular I think it's like their Facebook I I'm not even going to try and pronounce it but I know it exists it starts with a V uh the point though is that the guy has always been you know kind of standing up to governments trying to say no I'm not going to censor what you want everything that we have right now is an indication Crystal not of the stuff that you're talking about which I I don't disagree but is about the so-called like criminal organizing so the a representative of Alexa navali has come out and has defended durov being like just because criminals use telegram does not mean that he is liable for that I mean and you could obviously apply that same logic you know here in the US to Whatsapp or to uh to any messaging service like the whole idea of a platform and that and be but though because France in particular where Rumble one of the channels we post on I think is banned in France for this exact reason they have a much more hardcore government censorship regime so since he's a French citizen you know he it's it's a problem it's definitely going to be problem yeah absolutely and uh I definitely want to know a lot more details about what it is that they alleg that he did and and it does get to some of these questions about like are you a publisher or are you a platform like if you're are you just like you know a telephone service like this neutral neutral carrier or do you have some responsibility for what's posted on your platform and if you do how much responsibility and where are the lines about what's allowed to be posted if there you know if there's a failure in that is how is that how is that adjudicated so it gets to some of those questions too but again we know very little about this and I do think you are absolutely correct that it should be very troubling to people because telegram has pissed off so many governments around the world including our own um Russia Ukraine like you know if you are a truly sort of radical Free Speech activist in favor of transparency in favor of creating these neutral platforms that is going to put you in a very dangerous position and that's exactly what is unfolding and that's why you know that's why he's always known this he he very rarely does interviews he very you know kind of keeps a very very low profile and uh I'm worried about him and look it's on the French government they need to prove you know what they what he allegedly did because think about what the Europeans have done you know very recently the UK is locking up all these so-called far-right you know provocateurs even if they are that's not not a crime in this country it is a crime in their country uh you have the EU who sent that weird letter to uh Elon Musk telling him not to interview Donald Trump on X which is like who the are you like sorry you know what have you created lately and now you have the French government who's arresting this telegram CEO basically for you know for at at the very least now they're extending his detention they haven't released any of the charges and it's the burden of proof is on them because their censorious regime is proven now to anybody who looks at these issues so I guess for anybody out there just stay away stay away from France hey if you like that video hit the like button or leave a comment below it really helps get the show to more people and if you'd like to get the full show add free and in your inbox every morning you can sign up at breakingpoints tocom that's right get the full show help support the future of Independent Media at breakingpoints tocom