Not everything is about freedom of speech

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Dear reader,

It’s tempting to treat all social media platforms as the same. And they have a lot in common: They’re nearly all run by emotionally stunted tech billionaires; they’re hotbeds of disinformation that influence nearly every aspect of our lives; and they’re so addictive that we can’t seem to stop using them, no matter how bad they get. It’s easy to assume, then, that the arrest of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov in Paris last week could mark the beginning of a slippery slope against free speech on social media platforms in general. But a closer look at both Telegram’s unique characteristics, combined with the specific types of speech at issue in Pavel’s arrest, suggests that it’s unlikely that other platforms will be targeted in the same way—and maybe that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if they were.

You’re probably not that familiar with Telegram, since it’s much more popular outside of the United States than it is here. First, the origins: Telegram was founded in Russia in 2013 by Durov and his brother Nikolai. The duo previously owned Vkontakte, a Russian social media platform similar to Facebook, but shut it down in 2014 after a run-in with Russian authorities who wanted data on users involved in the 2013 pro-democracy protests in Ukraine. The brothers founded Telegram in Dubai, introducing a social media platform that combines messaging and social media features in novel ways.

Three key features set Telegram, which currently has nearly a billion users, apart from other social media platforms. The first is that Telegram, like other messaging apps, allows for group conversations—except that it can host “groups” of up to 200,000 people (for comparison, WhatsApp limits groups to 1,024 users). Telegram also offers public “channels” that can have an unlimited number of subscribers; channel administrators can post any content they want to. Unlike other social media apps, however, subscribers cannot comment on or otherwise add their own input to content posted on Telegram’s channels. Finally, users can opt into “secret chats,” which offer end-to-end encryption, similar to messaging apps like Signal—the content in these chats is inaccessible even to Telegram itself.

These features, combined with its owners’ previous refusal to bow to Russian officials’ demands for Vkontakte data, have made Telegram a champion of “cyberlibertarians” worldwide. And the platform’s democratizing features should not be underestimated. Telegram’s privacy makes it a favorite app for protesters and activists worldwide: it played a crucial role in the 2019 Hong Kong protests, the 2020 protests demonstrations in Belarusand the protests in Iran in 2017 and 2019. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has its own hugely popular Telegram channel that allows him to effectively combat Russian propaganda on the site. It is also one of the few places where Russians can find independent information about the war.

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So. Speaking of propaganda. As they say, one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist, so the same features that make Telegram a safe haven for people who oppose oppressive, authoritarian regimes also make it a great hideout for some bad hombres. For example, Telegram is the “app of your choice” for ISIS to spread its own propaganda and recruit new members: It was used to recruit the perpetrators behind the ISIS attacks in Berlin and Istanbul. Telegram has also become a safe haven for Twitter and Facebook users associated with the January 6 uprisingwho were kicked off those platforms after the attack on the Capitol. As a result, Telegram saw a 25 million user increase after the excommunication of their competitors.

But the reason Durov has run afoul of French law isn’t because of propaganda or extremist content. French authorities allege that Durov actually facilitates fairly basic criminal activities, such as child sexual exploitation and drug trafficking. The platform is also rife with fraud, as usernames don’t even need to be linked to phone numbers, eliminating even the most basic traceable identification or verification, and allowing individuals to pose as trusted authorities or companies. This is the result of the toxic combination of Telegram’s near-total lack of content moderation and the platform’s refusal to cooperate with law enforcement under any circumstances. And because Telegram allows unlimited forwarding of content – both within its massive groups and on its channels – criminal and exploitative content can spread quickly and at scale.

In this regard, Telegram seems even more dangerous than Twitter/X and Facebook (you might not have thought that was possible), since the latter platforms generally seek to remove criminal content and comply with authorized law enforcement investigations, especially when it comes to activities like terrorism and child sexual exploitation. And in any case, the slippery slope is unlikely to occur in the US anytime soon: the owners of these platforms are shielded from civil liability for unmoderated content on their products by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 2006 – a buffer that almost certainly indicates that they are also insulated from direct criminal liability for taking a laissez faire approach like Telegram. European countries, including France, on the other hand, offer no such protection, leaving owners like Durov criminally liable for “complicity in the management of an online platform to facilitate illegal transactions by an organized group.” I mean, that sounds pretty criminal to me.

Durov’s arrest is not really a matter of free speech as some have arguedbut rather a question of what kinds of accountability are appropriate for individuals who enable a vast criminal underworld that affects some of the most vulnerable people on the planet. Rather than seeing Durov’s arrest as a warning, perhaps we should see it as an example.

Stay informed,

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