French Police Arrest Founder of Messaging App Telegram

Robert F. Kennedy Jr @RobertKennedyJr

France just arrested Pavel Durov, founder & CEO of the encrypted, uncensored Telegram platform. The need to protect free speech has never been more urgent.

France claims that Telegram isn't "doing enough" to crack down on "illegal speech."

Anyone who runs any kind of website runs the danger that people will post criminal solicitations. You can only do so much to stop it.

And it's not really your responsibility to stop it, anyway -- you're not the police.

The Regime is going after the Regime's enemies. Child porn is routinely posted on FaceBook, but Mark Zuckenberg is a loyal servant of the Regime, so he is excused.

People may be using Telegram to post messages that threaten the Regime, so
France -- probably at the connivance of the US/UK Censorship-Industrial Complex -- connives a fake arrest warrant.

Pavel Durov, the Russian-born founder of messaging app Telegram, was arrested in France as part of an investigation into crimes related to child pornography, drug trafficking and fraudulent transactions on the platform, French prosecutors said on Monday.

All of these happen on FaceBook. And Signal. And WhatsApp. And Venmo.

French President Emmanuel Macron, making the first official confirmation of Durov's arrest since he was detained at Le Bourget airport outside Paris on Saturday evening, said there was no political motive in the arrest, despite many false comments online.

Little warning to you little people: We arrested this guy for his speech platform. If we hear any of you peons spreading "false comments" about the Regime arresting him for political purposes, you'll be the next in the dock.

He added that France remains deeply committed to lawful free speech.

Sure, just like the US and UK.

...

In a subsequent statement, Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said Durov was arrested as part of a probe into an unnamed person launched by the office's cybercrime unit on July 8.

The investigation is over suspected complicity in various crimes including running an online platform that allows illicit transactions, child pornography, drug trafficking and fraud, as well as the refusal to communicate information to authorities, money laundering and providing cryptographic services to criminals, the statement said.

That's the real reason for arrest -- he wouldn't turn over innocent conversations to the Regime when demanded.

So they went looking for illicit communications on Telegraph -- which, again, can be found on every messaging app -- and got him arrested.

If you doubt that -- check this flashback from the Daily Caller.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov told Tucker Carlson in April the U.S. government contacted one of the platform's engineers to help them spy on users in an April interview.

"There was an attempt to hire my engineer behind my back by cyber security officers or agents," Durov told Tucker.

He said the U.S. government was attempting to persuade his engineer to use specific tools in Telegram's code that would grant governments access, enabling them to surveil users.

"You're confident that happened?" Tucker pressed Durov.

"Yes," he stated. "There is no reason for my engineer to make up these stories."

He claimed the FBI questioned him when he visited the U.S. When Tucker asked if he had committed a crime, Durov answered that the FBI was interested in Telegram.

"They knew I -- left Russia," he said. "They knew what we were doing, but they wanted details, and my understanding is that they wanted to establish a relationship in a way to control Telegram better."

The FBI declined to comment, and the U.S. Department of Defense directed the Caller to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The ODNI has not immediately responded.

Ukranian agent-of-influence Alexander Vindman says the quiet part out loud and delights in the Deep State arresting all the people who disagree with him about politics and carbohydrate intake.

France arrested Telegram founder Pavel Durov on Saturday and the Deep State's favorite dancing monkey could not be happier.

Alexander Vindman, the national security "expert" of impeachment fame, now has a warning for anyone who would resist the coming storm of censorship.

Durov was "arrested for violating French law," Vindman wrote on X, but the arrest has "broader implications." It's just the beginning; there's a "growing appetite" for this sort of thing. "Musk should be nervous," he concluded, forebodingly.

Of course, Vindman is just the id of the liberal establishment. He's saying the quiet part out loud.

As Vindman notes in another tweet, France is ostensibly going after Durov for "all manner of criminal activity, including child porn" allegedly on the platform. But it's obviously just a pretext. Durov refused to bow to Vladimir Putin and censor speech on his platform in Russia. He fled to the West thinking it'd be safe. But now the supposedly liberal West is doing what even Putin wouldn't: they arrested him because he won't silence dissenting voices.

So while Vindman himself is a two-bit toady, he's right in the long-run. Durov's Telegram is mostly a threat to the Russia-Ukraine narrative. While Western elites love waging a good foreign proxy war, this won't ultimately hurt their bottom line. Musk's Twitter, on the other hand, has the power to shape the narrative back in the West.

...

Twitter is an existential threat to the regime's power across the West. And you can be they're not finished with Elon Musk just yet.

Update:

@oksana311231

The UAE unilaterally suspended the contract for the purchase of 80 French fighter jets because of Durov's arrest.

In addition, the UAE is considering a complete blockade of trade operations with France, including those related to the military-industrial complex.

Posted by: weft cut-loop

Good. It's time for 100% tariffs on all goods from the EU -- and especially from the UK.

Fuck them. Get out of NATO. Let them fight Russia themselves.

Whoops: I wrote "Telegraph" instead of Telegram a couple of times, including in the headline.

I've heard it both ways.

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:23 PM

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