Pavel Durov's arrest could expose how the Kremlin used Telegram to its advantage, expert says

euronews (in English)

The Telegram co-founder and CEO was apprehended by French authorities on Saturday at an airport near Paris.

Transcript

00:00The question with telegram platforms is the way that they are dealing with the control

00:13of the administrators of the channels. We know for a long time now that Pavel Duroc

00:20and more widely telegrams refused to comply with the law and to make moderation, like

00:32efficient moderation. Consequently, you can find lots of people who are using telegram

00:38for drug trafficking, terrorism, even money laundering and child abuse. So this is something

00:44that is already known. And there is another question. I mean, it's not the first time

00:49that telegram is pointed out for the way that they are dealing with moderation. Even

00:56with some countries, we can add light of question if it was for real or just for marketing,

01:02let's say, a coup in a marketing point. And I am especially thinking to Russia, because

01:08maybe you remember that in 2018, Russia tried to put the control on telegram. And at this

01:18time, Pavel Duroc refused. And the Kremlin says that they didn't manage and they cannot

01:26came into the networks. This is something quite strange, because if you are looking

01:31in the more recent year, many other countries that are not that good, like Russia is in

01:37IT technology, succeed in blocking the channels. So in a way, maybe saying like, OK, we want

01:45him to comply with the Kremlin law, which is very restrictive, because there is a lot

01:49of censorship. And they refused. We didn't. In a way, it is a big marketing coup, because

01:56everybody said, OK, even the Kremlin can't come into the encrypted social networks. So

02:03this is something which is a subject of question. I don't say that it was just for that. But

02:09many people are questioning themselves on the very reason of this action in 2018. And more

02:16recently, I don't know if you heard about that, but Vladimir Putin is seeing a lot of laws

02:22very quickly in order to impose a kind of reglamentation for telegram, mainly the owners

02:32of channels that are grouping more than 10,000 followers have to give the information to Roscoe

02:42Masdor, which is more or less the organization who is in charge of controlling all the medias

02:48and social networks. And if ever, and I mean, this law will be efficient in next November

02:58and in next January, so January 2025, the administrators could be forced to restrict

03:07the use of some of their users something like 24 hours after RKN or the FSB asked them. And

03:15in the same law, they are explaining that if you've got a channel who is followed by more than

03:22500,000 packs, you have to give all the information on your users, just if RKN or the

03:31FSB is asking it. So there is a kind of not a control, but let's say a kind of more or less

03:37cooperation with the channels and it has been seen in the very beginning of the summer.

03:42Telegram is a kind of, if it's not the main communication channel for the Russian army

03:56since the very beginning of the invasion of Ukraine. It's not just a news source,

04:02but it's a kind of key messenger that is used for coordination of action on different levels,

04:10to store video, to share large files and all these kind of things. And you've got a lot of

04:17channels who are directly, more or less directly connected with the Kremlin or with the DOD,

04:23the Department of Defense of Russia. So we know that from the very beginning.

04:31So, you know, there is a lot of people who are using Telegram just because it's practical,

04:37not because of the encryption. But on another hand, it has been used in order to

04:43be efficient for criminal activity, as state, drug trafficking, child abuse, money laundering,

04:50terrorism, etc. But also as a communication channel for the Kremlin and for the DOD.

04:58In that light, I don't know if it's interesting to you, more or less, but we observed that some

05:05fake channels have been created and have been directly connected with the Kremlin.

05:12So basically, some people on Telegram were explaining that they make kind of

05:18authentication of pictures of video concerning especially the Ukrainian war field. And it was

05:26just fake. So basically, they said, we are making open source intelligence. So we are checking

05:33all the facts and they were making false fact checking. Fun fact, lots of them have been

05:38debunked by real OSINTers who said, no, that didn't work. Because when you are doing OSINT,

05:44there are kind of rules, let's say the rule of the games. Basically, you have to use open source

05:50tools, meaning that you and I, if we want to redo what has been done in order to make an

05:57authentication, you can do it. And the way that the path that this fake OSINT were given didn't

06:05work. If you are looking, there is a lot of channels who are definitely pro-Russia and pro-

06:18Kremlin. So they can be like autonomous channels, you know, the liberty of speech and you are free

06:24to believe in whatever you want. But lots of them were more or less connected to the Department of

06:30Defense or to the Kremlin, because some of the administrator was a member of this kind of

06:36administration or could have been connected and linked to them. So we know it perfectly.

06:43It was more or less the same with Wagner private military company, who was formerly ruled by

06:51Yevgeny Prigozhin. And we are at the first birthday of his accidental death this summer.

06:58So lots of channels are really carrying the ideas of the Kremlin. Of course, they are not the only

07:07one. You can find some of them and you can find a lot of trolls on other social networks, on

07:13Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and many others. But in the case of Telegram, we can really see that

07:22they were using another point, which may be interesting in that light. The arrestation of

07:29Durov may target a ton of cryptocurrency, which is used as a wallet by many large Russian business

07:36people. And if you are looking on the financial point of view and Telegram is working, you can

07:43see that a huge part of the money of Telegram came from Russia. And you can find other

07:51Russian oligarchs who are part of the activities of Telegram. So definitely there is a connection.

08:04The arrestation is directly connected with the fact that Pavel refused to cooperate

08:10with the French authority, especially for child abuse. Because remember, it's the office

08:18who is in charge of fighting against child abuse who requests for his arrestation. But

08:24the authorities say that they will also inquire on the link with Russia, from Telegram with Russia.

08:33Basically, we'll see. The point is, and we can be pretty sure of that,

08:38that it will have an impact and at least an interest. And of course,

08:45we won't wait a long time before hearing some voices from Russia yelling at the double standards

08:53of Westerners because they are arresting Pavel Duroc and they will use, and I said use

09:02with a specific idea, the freedom of speech. And that is quite interesting, knowing that they've

09:07got a very huge censorship in Russia. The arrestation is not motivated by something

09:14that could have been said and that is not under the law. And this is what is really interesting.

09:21And the French authority were very careful and very smart on that. They are arresting him because

09:27he didn't comply and he didn't collaborate with the authority. And when we are talking about

09:33child abuse, money laundering or terrorism, we are talking about crime. We are not talking about

09:38freedom of speech. So we are not, let's say, boxing on the same rig.

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