Freedom of Speech vs. National Security: Durov’s Arrest and Beyond

“Privacy is dead, and social media holds the smoking gun,” Pete Cashmore, an influential internet entrepreneur and thinker, wrote in 2009. Yet in the 2010s, social media companies were harbingers of change. A decade later, these ubiquitous, versatile, and essential tools have become threats to national security. Twitter, Telegram, TikTok, and Facebook are cast as villains in Western democracies and Eastern autocracies alike. The right to encrypted communications is no longer synonymous with freedom of speech, whether in France or Brazil. The taxonomy of social media platforms is shifting from that of tech companies to a more complex one. There’s also a tug-of-war between these tech media giants and governments over taxes, legal restrictions, and threats to national security. Autocratic rulers want them to play by the rules or risk losing advertising revenue, and democratic republics prioritize security concerns over freedom of speech.

In a world of contradictions, Telegram’s Pavel Durov and X’s Elon Musk claim to be absolutists and free speech libertarians. Both have little respect for dissent and routinely ignore the advice of their teams. Meta, Facebook and Instagram’s Mark Zuckerberg focuses exclusively on technology and internet entrepreneurship.

Messy digital and regulatory landscape

Shortly after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion, he applied his strategy laissez faire approach to content moderation and the reduction, if not elimination, of all measures against fake news, hate speech and extremism. For half a billion subscribers, the Tesla founder began to deliver what he had promised from the start. In a dramatic and far-reaching move, Musk granted verified status to prominent users (over 800,000 of them) and opened the floodgates of blue checkmarks to anyone who could afford a monthly subscription fee. Ironically, Twitter began verifying prominent users, soon followed by Google+ in 2011, Facebook in 2012 and Instagram in 2014. Copycats bought the blue checkmark that undermined these platforms.

Twitter became a literal flamethrower when the UK was embroiled in sectarian riots following the stabbing of three children in Southport on July 30. As if the relaxed content moderation standards and the reinstatement of banned extremists like Tommy Robinson and Andrew Tate weren’t enough, Musk tweeted: “Civil war is inevitable.” Musk has previously openly expressed support for Germany’s far-right AFD party. The German Foreign Ministry objected to one of his tweets about funding NGOs that rescue migrants in the Mediterranean: “Yes. And it’s called saving lives.” The $250 billion man has banned journalists who are critical of Israel.

Then there’s Telegram, with a billion subscribers. Often labeled as the new dark web, the social media and messaging service is popular not only among politicians, government officials, and the general public, but also among criminal gangs and sleuths of all stripes. Currently being held in France on $550 million bail, CEO and owner Pavel Durov faces charges of failure to cooperate in criminal cases involving child sex traffickers and could face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty. Durov was also accused of ignoring law enforcement requests, a common, long-standing grudge among law enforcement agencies around the world.

Distrust of Telegram is deeply rooted in France, as the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks were coordinated through the platform. French President Emmanuel Macron regularly uses the platform to communicate with his followers, despite heightened security concerns.

The anti-authoritarian platform reportedly shared the identities of Russian opposition activists with the Kremlin. Before landing in Paris, the Telegram CEO reportedly met with the Russian president in Baku, Azerbaijan. According to Russian media reports, Durov has visited Russia more than 50 times and publicly claimed to be persona non grata in Moscow. However, that hasn’t stopped Ukrainians, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, from increasingly using the platform. Because Telegram has two streams of activity: unencrypted open social networks like group chats and one-on-one messages, and secret encrypted chats, the Russian military has long relied on Telegram for cheap, secure, and easy communication. Durov’s arrest risks compromising Telegram’s encryption, forcing the Russian military to fall back on secure military networks amid an invasion. Unlike Signal, Telegram’s encryption is not available for public review, and it remains to be seen whether one or more foreign agencies or hackers will gain access to the messaging platform. As for encrypted content, Telegram pays little attention to it, as it employs only 30-40 people for oversight and regulation, while Meta employs over 40,000 people.

As the British debate over whether Musk incited violence continues, Durov is now listed among high-profile tech entrepreneurs Ross Ulbricht of online black market Silk Road and Chang Pang Zhao of cryptocurrency exchange Binance who have also been charged with crimes committed by users through their services.

Russia and Iran have been most notable in criticizing France for detaining Durov and restricting freedom of speech. How many times have Tehran and Moscow advocated freedom of speech?

The devil is in the details

Brazil’s Supreme Court may not overturn Twitter’s ban. The EU could take a cue from Telegram for its unruly practices. Social media platforms could even set up national representative offices around the world, as Turkey and Pakistan have tried. The dilemma of operating under vastly different laws around the world seems as complex as 200 countries striving for net-zero emissions goals.

The roots of social media censorship and surveillance can be traced to controversies over the COVID-19 vaccine and disinformation. The pandemic underscored the grave challenges that social media platforms would continue to pose. The abuse of messaging services, some of which are encrypted, by violent extremist organizations and fraudsters rattled national intelligence and security agencies. When Musk decided to remove the verification tag, the FBI was so alarmed that a team visited Twitter headquarters. “Just because someone has a lot of money doesn’t mean they can disrespect (the law),” Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said after the country’s highest court suspended Twitter. The age of digital exceptionalism, he meant, has arrived.

Macron had dinner with Durov and offered him French citizenship, which he later accepted along with the UAE in 2021. Abu Dhabi even invested $75 million in Telegram after Durov agreed to move his headquarters to the country. Why provoke a diplomatic crisis of global proportions if it could have been avoided? Why would a tech entrepreneur invest in another country if it won’t come to the rescue?

Conversely, the United States may fail to get its TikTok divestment legislation banned or banned. What appears to be a politically motivated bill is called “unconstitutional” by Beijing’s ByteDance and “not possible” by divestment. Citing First Amendment rights, the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to strike down the legislation. Durov may also leave France alone. Still, it won’t work out as usual for unrepentant tech executives, their powerful digital platforms, and tech-savvy criminals. In today’s polarized world, arbitrary, opaque, and retaliatory legislation will result in a bewildering game of digital hide-and-seek with the techno-utopians or anarchists.