In August, Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris following the launch of a formal investigation into crimes committed on his app, Telegram. Telegram began in 2013 as a messaging service and is used by nearly a billion people worldwide. Its functions vary from public channels, to business marketing, and encrypted private chats. Prior to Telegram, Durov created VKontakte. Similar to Facebook, but used mainly by a Russian-speaking audience, VKontakte enjoyed considerable success in Russia. As more users joined, it became a popular platform to broadcast political opinions and opposition groups quickly took advantage of the platform to organise protests and share anti-establishment ideas. In defiance of Vladamir Putin, Durov refused to moderate VKontakte and censor opposing political parties. This ultimately led to Durov’s departure from Russia and the collapse of VKontakte.
However, his continued resistance to moderation and censorship is apparent in how he markets Telegram. He advertises it as a platform that protects free speech and is free from government interference, with high levels of privacy and impenetrable encryption. Additionally, he has stated that the messaging function on his app is more secure than that of rivals Whatsapp and Signal. As such, he employs very few moderators and shares little information with police or governments about illegal activities on the platform. The unwillingness to moderate Telegram has become a pressing issue due to the size of the app. With the amount of content and activity, existing user security measures have become largely ineffective. This has made the app attractive to those seeking low moderation and secure encryption for messaging. Criminals, far-right organisers, neo-nazis and terrorists have exploited Telegram’s relaxed moderation.
Durov’s lack of transparency and dangerous stance on moderation has put Telegram under scrutiny and led to calls for sanctions. However, before his arrest, it was unclear as to how the platform would be penalized. One widely applicable piece of legislation that governs online platforms, and was designed for cases exactly like this, is the Digital Services Act. Adopted by the European Union (EU) in August 2023, the DSA regulations apply to platforms with more than 45 million users in the EU. This act aims to incentivise companies to take voluntary measures to protect their users from “illegal content, goods or services”. The DSA includes various measures to lower criminal activities on online platforms; however, as per the DSA, the most the European Commission can do to penalize violators is the temporary suspension of the service. While the DSA has been referenced as part of the case against Telegram by free speech activists and journalists alike, according to the European Commission, the recent arrest of Durov in Paris was part of a completely separate French criminal investigation. The Commission clearly stated that the DSA should not be involved in the consideration of this matter as “criminal prosecution is not among the potential sanctions for a breach of the DSA”.
Therefore, this indicates that the DSA does not, in fact, overstep its jurisdiction as is defined by international law. Although the DSA’s regulation, along with national regulation, has been increasingly punitive in the last few years, the peculiarities of this case show that Durov’s arrest was due to issues unique to Telegram. Most importantly, Durov’s moderation is far less comprehensive than most other social media apps of Telegram’s size. Even with slightly more user security measures, he might have avoided this arrest. The charges being brought against him indicate he even failed to suppress large amounts of graphic content involving children and failed to shut down fraud and bots taking over his app. Additionally, unlike Whatsapp or Apple iMessage, which have end-to-end encryption for all chats and therefore cannot access user data, Telegram can access private messages. Contrary to what Durov presents to Telegram users, his app has very limited encryption for most of its chats. Durov is clearly far more liable for not cooperating with law enforcement, because he had the ability to provide user information to police and was deliberately withholding it. For these reasons, it is very unlikely that other tech moguls will be arrested due to poor moderation.
In conclusion, although Pavel Durov’s arrest might have raised concerns about the responsibility of social media and technology companies for the content on their platforms, it is clear that the crackdown on Telegram’s moderation policies does not indicate new regulations for other platforms. Due to growing concerns for online safety, platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest have all adopted measures in line with the DSA, such as making it more accessible to report illegal content. Moreover, this reflects a general consensus towards implementing fair and reasonable policies regarding the regulation of messaging and social media platforms that ultimately promotes the safety and security of users.
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