SANTA MONICA – After Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, a digital communication company that provides a platform for encrypted messaging and communications, was arrested in France over the weekend, digital platforms and their owners are once again being asked to take some responsibility for the messages and information they are spreading.
Pavel Durov, the 39 yea-old billionaire, who was born in Russia but now has French and U.A.E. citizenship, will spend approximately 96 hours under lock and key in French custody.
France 24 and Reuters reported that Durov is under investigation by France’s national cyber crime and fraud offices for failing to cooperate over cyber and financial crimes on Telegram.
Durov has bragged that Telegram has more than 900 million users. People like to use the communication platform because of the anonymity the heavy encryption allows.
Most people who use the platform are not trying to hide anything. But criminals are not like most of us.
According to the New York Times, authorities have been monitoring Telegram because terrorist organizations, drug sellers, weapons dealers, and far-right extremists groups use Telegram to recruit, organize, communicate, and by-pass laws and government regulations around the world.
Since the advancement of communicating via social media platforms such as Telegram, X (formerly twitter), Facebook, and Rumble (not the fish), coordinating social unrest has become easier. For example, on January 6th, 2021 the people who tried to overthrow the American government used twitter and Parler to communicate. Facebook has been accused of spreading misinformation leading to the continued genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar. And the Polaris Project claims that nearly 8% of active U.S. federal online sex trafficking cases prosecuted in the United States involved advertisements for sex on Facebook.
While encrypted communication and social media platforms allow people to communicate freely around the world, are the majority of people being negatively impacted by the lack of regulation these digital companies enjoy? Who should be responsible? If I sell you a product, shouldn’t I have to stand behind that product and guarantee that it will do no harm to you or society at large?
Some referential information and content courtesy of France 24, the New York Times, Amnesty International, Polaris, and Time.
