In light of the recent arrest of Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov, he vowed to step up his moderation efforts. With almost a billion active users and features far surpassing any other chat app, it’s more accurate to call it a social network.
Four days after his arrest, Durov was released on a €5 million bail on August 28th. A week later, on September 5th, he took to his Telegram channel to break his silence on the matter. He echoed the universal confusion caused by the actions of French law enforcement. “I was told I may be personally responsible for other people’s illegal use of Telegram, because the French authorities didn’t receive responses from Telegram,” he explains.
He fired back at those claims, affirming that Telegram has an official EU representative for precisely this purpose. Additionally, French authorities allegedly never made attempts to reach out to Durov personally. The decision to charge a CEO for the actions of third parties would of course stifle innovation. He then ends by shedding light on Telegram’s ongoing measures against abuse, and a promise to do better. After all, Telegram is rapidly approaching a billion users worldwide. Content moderation on this scale is unfathomable, especially for a small non-profit team like Telegram’s.
On September 23rd, Durov posted to his Telegram channel announcing changes to the platform, as he does. He focused on the blocking of “illegal material” from Telegram’s search results. What raised eyebrows was what he said next:
“To further deter criminals from abusing Telegram Search, we have updated our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, ensuring they are consistent across the world. We’ve made it clear that the IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate our rules can be disclosed to relevant authorities in response to valid legal requests.”
Now it’s easy to cynically view this as an empty promise to appease law enforcement, and it might be. But much like his arrest, what’s concerning here is the precedent it sets. And I’m not big on “slippery slope” arguments in general, but it makes sense here. Whose laws is Telegram following now? Every country’s? What about the more authoritarian ones? He didn’t go into detail.
On the other hand, this is a reasonable compromise on his part. He’s no longer harboring child sex offenders, which everyone agrees is a good thing. At the very least, this nullifies the excuse of going after Telegram to “protect the kids”. That was very smart on his part.
For Telegram users, we get to continue guiltlessly enjoying the benefits of the app. With that said, it’s worth keeping an eye on Telegram in the coming months to see just how much knee-bending they do. Because while we agree with it this time, next time we might not. But having gotten away with it once makes it easier to get away with it again.