Letter From the Editors

In a move widely condemned as an attack on freedom of speech, the French authorities arrested Telegram founder Pavel Durov after his private jet landed outside Paris on Aug. 24. Much remains unclear about the arrest, but what we do know is that Durov, who holds French citizenship, was detained as part of a case concerning child exploitation, drug trafficking, money laundering and, what Yulia Latynina calls “the cherry on top” – the “provision of cryptographic services without a certified declaration.” What we don’t know is why Durov flew to France when he was aware of the legal peril of doing so, why he chose to fly there through Baku and whether he met with Putin in Baku.

In an article for Republic, Tatyana Rybakova sets these questions aside and gets down to the heart of the matter: The charges, she says, concern the fact that “moderation is technically impossible, since message encryption keys are generated locally on users’ devices and are never transmitted to the messenger’s server.” As Sofya Kanevskaya explains, Telegram does not “monitor messages in private chats or private groups,” and can only delete content from public channels. According to her, it is the company’s refusal to provide encrypted data that has turned it into a hotbed for criminal activities like child pornography, drug trafficking and terrorism, among other things. Durov’s lawyer, however, says that “On issues of moderation, Telegram is in line with all other players in the social media space.*** But we must think about the fact that accusing Telegram of aiding criminals is absurd. This is a very peculiar legal vision of society.”

For many, moderation poses an inherent threat to freedom of expression. French political analyst Aymeric Chauprade believes Durov’s arrest “indicates a clear drift by the EU toward restricting freedom of speech.” And Yulia Latynina argues that Durov’s arrest for complicity in criminal activities only proves that the authorities themselves are incapable of taking any action against criminal groups. To her, the arrest “is about the future that awaits the West: digital freedom or a digital gulag.” Freedom of speech, she says, “cannot be selective.” Meanwhile, Fyodor Lukyanov writes that “The tightening of control over everything connected to data will inevitably increase the level of repression in the information sector.”

Republic’s Andrei Sapozhnik expands on this idea, saying that “in the Russian context, with its extremely censored Internet and ruined public life, Durov’s messaging app looks like an island of freedom.” However, “a resident of, say, Strasbourg is unlikely to see a connection between freedom of speech and a platform teeming with child pornography and drug dealers.”

According to some, Telegram is also teeming with groups and individuals promoting a “pro-Russian narrative.” These include legitimate journalists, as well as popular political and military bloggers who could be in or out of the government’s favor at any given moment. Now, in an attempt to bring the military blogosphere to heel, the State Duma is drafting a law to grant war correspondents “veteran” status, but only after reporting from the front lines. According to Aleksei Makarkin, one of the bill’s goals is to incorporate these war bloggers into “the state [media] mechanism,” which, Aleksei Mukhin says, will “weed out” the bloggers who don’t toe the state’s line. The most important thing though is, in the words of Sergei Mironov, “to establish a unified state information resource that would combine and summarize disparate reports about the situation on the front lines and on the home front.”

One thing that’s for certain is that this resource won’t include the words of UAF troops, who indicated in interviews with Meduza that they are happy about the Ukrainian incursion into Kursk Province. According to one UAF soldier, “I felt like someone who’s willing to sacrifice something for the sake of peace in my own land.” And such feelings cannot ever be suppressed by any social network no matter how hard it tries.