Is Pavel Durov breaking down? Black clouds on Telegram
What follows is my English translation of a post, originally in Italian, written and published by Nilo Vlas on his Telegram channel on Monday 28th October 2024. (All formatting original).
Telegram founder Pavel Durov is still stuck in France, free to move within the country but without permission to leave.
It has been two months since his arrest, a period in which he has made time to turn 40, lose a son and, apparently, open Telegram to interference from Western regimes.
On 6 October, Pavel reported in a post on his channel that his girlfriend Julia, with whom he was travelling at the time of his arrest, was pregnant. In the first days after the arrest, while Pavel was in his cell, Julia was also subjected to intense interrogation, as well as pressure from the media, where a theory had begun to circulate that she was a Mossad agent responsible for leading Durov into a trap. As a result of the excessive pressure, Julia lost her baby....
Beyond the personal tragedies, Durov obviously also spoke out on the Telegram case and if on the one hand he criticised the judicial persecution - unjustified and with the clear characteristics of a trap, given that the European Union has for years had a direct channel of communication with Telegram's leadership that it could have used to ask for clarification, instead of issuing an arrest warrant before he landed - on the other hand he acknowledged the need for more crime control on his platform. In particular, he announced that:
To further deter criminals from abusing Telegram Search, we have updated our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, ensuring that they are consistent across the globe. We clarified that the IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate our rules may be disclosed to the relevant authorities in response to valid legal requests.
A smoky formulation that did not reassure all those who value Telegram for its privacy and freedom of expression. What in fact is a ‘valid legal request’?
Durov assured that these are purely formal changes in the Terms of Service, as Telegram has been providing IP addresses to authorities since the year 2018, in case of criminal activity.
Around the world, however, there are many who have noticed changes in Telegram's functioning in recent weeks.
In Moldova, where presidential elections have just been held, many leaders of the political opposition to the pro-European government of Maia Sandu have complained about the banning of their profiles. In short, we would be facing something new on Telegram, namely political censorship.
If we trust Durov, Telegram is only extending its collaboration with governments in the field of crime fighting. But at a historical juncture when political opposition is being progressively criminalised, this does not reassure me at all. For the EU, there is no difference between a paedophile who produces child pornography and a political opponent who spreads what the Ministry of Truth in Brussels considers fake news: they are both criminals. The serious risk we face is that, behind the noble façade of fighting crime, Telegram will end up giving in to the purely political interference of the EU. It is enough to turn dissent into a crime.
I hope that the incidents in Moldova will not be followed up and that the wave of suspicious suspensions of Telegram profiles around the world are just a strange coincidence. But by now, it cannot be ruled out that Durov, a hostage of the French government, has accepted the ‘proposal that cannot be refused’ in order to become free again.
My advice, especially for those with big channels, is to have a back-up solution. Better to have it and not have to use it, than to hope everything goes well and lose thousands of subscribers and years of content.
Forewarned is forearmed.
By the way, on the same day, the spokeswoman of Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, wrote the following in a post on her Telegram channel, thus confirming what reported by Nilo Vlas in his post:
Telegram has blocked the RT channel for a number of countries.
If this affects you, use the “mirror” https://t.me/Zerkalo_NewZ
Here's the bottom line on social media: It's utterly under the control of the governments in countries in which it operates. Anyone who thought Telegram - or any other social media - was "secure" or "safe" was delusional.
All these sites like Rumble, Substack, Odyssey, and the rest are "free" NOW - but won't be "free" tomorrow. And all of them have "terms of service" which prohibit discussing how to do crime or recommending illegal acts, let alone actually committing any.
There is no such thing as "Internet freedom" - unless you are self-hosting on the DarkNet anonymously and everything is encrypted and your OPSEC is top notch.
Physically you are not "free" unless you are armed, have bullet-proof false ID, and have enough money to be able to move around freely in transportation and life support terms. In other words, you live like a (rich) terrorist.
There are five rules of personal security:
1) No one knows who you are.
2) No one knows where you are.
3) No one knows your purpose or intentions.
4) You are mobile.
5) You have overwhelming local firepower, i.e., if the above rules fail, you have the ability to keep the enemy at bay until you can disengage and resume operating under the previous 4 rules.
A corollary of the above is no organization, however clandestine, can adhere to those rules. Only individuals can to the extent they have the resources to do so.
Otherwise the state owns you. Period. Deal.