so what's really going on here with these charges against Durov/Telegram?

[butters]

musk seems to be alarmed he'll be arrested next

The spectacular arrest of Pavel Durov on the tarmac of Paris’s Le Bourget airport just after his private jet touched down on Saturday elicited an intense debate over where exactly the boundaries of protected free speech end and the rule of law begins.

Durov is being held in France initially without formal charges, but authorities could accuse the Telegram founder of failing to police illegal content and commerce conducted via Telegram.

Musk's X is likewise in the crosshairs of European policymakers, with the EU Commission recently reminding him of its failure to observe the Digital Services Act that requires large platform owners to systematically clamp down on false and misleading content.

musk'd be all "Do you KNOW WHO I AM!!???!!!"

The entrepreneur, who is also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, called on France to “free Pavel”, warning his arrest signalled dangerous times ahead for democracy.

“The 2nd amendment is the only reason long-term that the 1st amendment will be upheld,” he added, referring to the constitutionally-protected right in the United States to bear arms and exercise free speech.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...p&cvid=fdd9ba42320f4c84b09d671015b14634&ei=20


I'm sure Europe won't mind him not being able to set foot on the continent in case he gets arrested but it'll cramp musk's jetsetting hops.

 

[butters]

update to the above:

given what's going on around the world right now with Russia, the Saudi influence, a message to musk and more, perhaps there's a deeper story to these charges being brought now after years of ignored court reachouts and subpoenas. That's not to say the telegram founder has no responsibility or that the charges are false... only that there're potentially far more convoluted reasons for the what, why and where of them.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/worl...p&cvid=ebed7e11cab84f80a6f8bc536ff25b42&ei=41

Beccuau said Telegram had popped up repeatedly in investigations into child pornography, drug trafficking and inciting racial hatred online since the app’s launch in 2013. Other prosecutors around France and in other European countries noted the same trend when the Paris prosecutor consulted them, she said. That prompted French investigators to examine whether Telegram executives were criminally liable for the illegal activity taking place on the platform.

he's had to post a €5m bail, cannot leave France, is court-monitored and has to report to the police twice a week and this could go on for months, even years.

The requirements imposed by the court are likely to put an end to the jet-setting lifestyle of Durov, who has spent the past decade bouncing between Russia, Europe and the Middle East, accumulating nationalities along the way. Born in Soviet Russia, he became a citizen of France and the United Arab Emirates in 2021. He also has citizenship for St. Kitts and Nevis, an island in the Caribbean that offers it for those who can pay.

His arrest and charges have unnerved people across the social-media industry, said Sarah Oh Lam, senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute, a Washington think tank that is largely funded by the tech industry.

a not-too-subtle message being sent to a whole bunch of people to clean up their act

For years, the company ignored subpoenas and court orders sent by authorities, which piled up in a rarely checked company email address, according to a person close to Durov.

not the normal way for social media companies to behave

An office rented by Telegram in Dubai—where Durov moved the company headquarters in 2017—was closed on Wednesday. A receptionist in Business Central Towers said Telegram was registered as a tenant for several years, but she had never seen anyone from the company work out of the more than 3,000-square-foot office in her time there. She also said she couldn’t find any contact details for the company or one of its representatives on the building security system, which she said was usually updated with such information for most other tenants there.

hmmnnnn

in 2017, the French gov't and the U.AE used spies to hack into Durov's phone and in 2018 Macron sought to get him to move telegram to Paris.
The Russians "attempted" to block Telegram in 2018, citing its use by terrorists, but Telegram actually thrived in Russia; in 2020, Russia apparently relented, saying there was a deal with Telegram to monitor and fight terrorist content on its platform, a deal Telegram denied. He founded Telegram in 2013, after the Russian gov't began demanding information about Ukrainians and anti-Russian supporters.

With all the above, it seems like almost every country's interested in his company/activities, maybe more for their own benefit than because of the announced charges. Or maybe I've just been watching too much of The Blacklist

 

[Lazaran]

All the rapey, racist, misogynistic, sociopathic / psychopathic, crime abetting Musk and Trump, etc, sycophants will avoid addressing the content of this thread like the plague.

It’s a sin to “Take the names of the lords their gods in vain”.

 

[butters]

there do seem to be a whole lot of fingers in this particular pie, with the charges reading probably true but happening now as more of a convenience to those with vested interests—not the expendable 'terrorists' or pedophiles or money-launderers.

We (the general public) are being given a picture to look at but it's only the work of committed reporters that will show it as only a web-capture of a small area of a much larger image.

all a matter of perspective, i guess, but interesting to me at least.

 

[astuffedshirt_perv]

All the rapey, racist, misogynistic, sociopathic / psychopathic, crime abetting Musk and Trump, etc, sycophants will avoid addressing the content of this thread like the plague.

I don't think anyone questions whether or not illicit activities take place on Telegram, they clearly do. The question is what, if anything, can be don about an end-to-end encrypted messaging system. It is unclear to me how Durov's arrest can change any of that.

 

[butters]

I don't think anyone questions whether or not illicit activities take place on Telegram, they clearly do. The question is what, if anything, can be done about an end-to-end encrypted messaging system. It is unclear to me how Durov's arrest can change any of that.

Which is why I'm seeing it in far broader terms of diplomatic relationships behind the scenes in a multitude of countries, with bargaining taking place, quid-pro-quos and tit-for-tats while, at the same time, messages being sent to players such as musk, silicon valley, even tik tok, with certain pressures being applied to Russia and Saudi with all that entails.

As i mentioned before, I may just have been watching The Blacklist too much which is a fun show with massive holes, but still

 

[Lazaran]

I don't think anyone questions whether or not illicit activities take place on Telegram, they clearly do. The question is what, if anything, can be don about an end-to-end encrypted messaging system. It is unclear to me how Durov's arrest can change any of that.

Really???



The buck stops somewhere, right???



A big part of crime prevention is the deterrence fostered by laws that hold people accountable for their action or inaction, no???



Individuals like Musk, Durov, Zuckerberg, Trump, etc, have been getting away with passing the buck for all the crimes they have been complicit in for FAR too long.

Lock them up!!!

 

[butters]

X reported a shedload of outages today, with people not being able to upload content and more.
And then there's this:

Elon Musk's Starlink said Thursday that Brazil's top judge has issued an order that "freezes" the internet satellite business' finances in the country and prevents it from conducting financial transactions in Latin America's largest nation.

Why it matters: Starlink confirmed on X that the action was due to a standoff between Musk's social media platform and Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.

• Moraes issued a summons on Wednesday alerting Musk that X had until about 8pm local time Thursday (7pm ET) to comply with the order to name a legal representative for the platform in Brazil within 24 hours or he'd have the site suspended in the country.

musk says it was 'done in secret' and will fight it in court

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/com...p&cvid=39d1762afa9f4a5eacf1bb9eab42a18d&ei=18

IF that affects, for example, Ukraine (whose fight against putin has depended on it at times) I have no idea.