• A_A@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago
    Pavel Valeryevich Durov

    (Russian: Павел Валерьевич Дуров; born 10 October 1984)[4] is a Russian-born Emirati entrepreneur who is known for founding the social networking site VK and the app Telegram Messenger. He is the younger brother of Nikolai Durov. As of 29 September 2022, his net worth is estimated at US$15.1 billion. In 2022, he was recognized as the richest expat in the United Arab Emirates, according to Forbes. In February 2023, Arabian Business named him the most powerful entrepreneur in Dubai.


    translation of major allegation :
    “The (French) Justice system considers that the lack of moderation, cooperation with law enforcement, and the tools offered by Telegram (disposable numbers, cryptocurrencies, etc.) make it an accomplice to drug trafficking, pedocriminal offenses, and scams.”

      • einkorn@feddit.org
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        3 months ago

        The issue I see with Telegram is that they retain a certain control over the content on their platform, as they have blocked channels in the past. That’s unlike for example Signal, which only acts as a carrier for the encrypted data.

        If they have control over what people are able to share via their platform, the relevant laws should apply, imho.

      • XNX@slrpnk.net
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        3 months ago

        I agree but its not even an encrypted messenger. Almost no one uses the weak encryption and im pretty sure they offer decryption to governments considering they were threatened to be banned in russia and avoided it

      • sugartits@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        What has encryption got to do with it?

        Most of telegram is not encrypted. There are unencrypted channels on telegram right now hosting child pornography. Telegram never removes them.

        • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          Telegram and VK are both CSAM cesspits. Most of Russian social media has this problem, but VK and Telegram are where you’ll end up exposed to shit just by browsing.

        • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          Good. They shouldn’t.

          Unencrypted channels are the ones that are easiest to trace, and the easiest ones to successfully base a prosecution on.

          The most correct response is to report them to law enforcement. Unencrypted channels make amazingly effective honeypots. It’s fairly easy to bust people using unencrypted channels, esp. because people think they’re anonymous and safe. It’s much, much harder to bust people once they move to .onion sites and the real dark net away from their phone. When you shut down all the easy channels, you push people into areas where it’s much harder, almost impossible, to root them out.

          • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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            3 months ago

            Look, if you’re going to knowingly host child porn, and not take it down even after you have been made aware, you get what’s coming to you.

            The idea that Telegram would somehow better serve their customers by staging law enforcement stings in unencrypted channels is completely divorced from Telegram’s core mission.

            This has nothing to do with freedom of speech or the right to encrypt. Child Pornography is a criminal matter. Failure to cooperate with law enforcement while providing comms and distribution to child pornographers is going to land you in deep shit eventually.

          • whereisk@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            What if telegram refuses to cooperate with law enforcement in a timely fashion to provide details of the people sharing that material? What should law enforcement do then?

            • prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works
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              3 months ago

              At that point they’re willingly hosting it for no reason other than to host it for their customers and they’re complicit, no?

            • HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              I think that holding the executives and BoD in criminal contempt of court is a good place to start.

              EDIT: AFAIK Telegram doesn’t use warrant canaries.

          • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
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            3 months ago

            No. You can say that about so many laws being made, but telegram simply hosts the most vile shit.

            • ravhall@discuss.online
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              3 months ago

              So you’re saying we should shut down any service that allows encrypted communication? Because any service that offers encrypted communication is going to be enticing to someone who commits crimes.

              • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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                3 months ago

                No, we should shut down any service that refuses to take action against its users when presented with proof that they are distributing child porn.

                Encryption only offers so much plausible deniability. Once law enforcement gains access to one of these channels, they have proof of what’s going on, and the content is all hosted by Telegram. When Telegram refuses to cooperate and remove this content, they become complicit in distributing it.

                Encryption isn’t an excuse to violate the law. If Telegram’s policy is not to remove CSAM, then they are a criminal organization.

                • ravhall@discuss.online
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                  3 months ago

                  We should shut down any organization that doesn’t cooperate with police when people are breaking laws or just the laws you want them to help enforce?

                  • flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
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                    3 months ago

                    No, that’s not what the person is saying in the slightest. Just read their comment again, it’s actually very clear.

        • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          It doesn’t matter in the slightest.

          Making a tool that provides a private communication service literally everyone should have unrestricted access to does not make you an accomplice to anything.

          • lennybird@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            The ISP will absolutely cooperate with law enforcement though, unlike telegram. That seems the nature of the issue in that there is a lack of moderation and oversight, which anonymity is not mutually-exclusive from flagging nefarious activities, ideally. I REALLY am not too keen on giving safe harbor to the likes of pedos and traffickers and what have you.

            • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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              3 months ago

              I REALLY am not too keen on giving safe harbor to the likes of pedos and traffickers and what have you.

              Secure communication between individuals is a fundamental right. That nefarious activities can be conducted over secure channels can never be justification for suspending that right.

              • lennybird@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                I’m not sure I yet agree with that. People can have secure communications; that’s called meeting in person and in a private room. That line gets blurred with intercontinental mass-communication that ultimately is beyond the use of the average citizen and is more frequently utilized to nefarious ends. If the damage outweighs the benefits to society, then clearly a rational limit perhaps should be considered.

                Ultimately, what matters is respecting the house rules; and if the house rules of France were broken, why in the world would he travel there?

                • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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                  3 months ago

                  That line gets blurred with intercontinental mass-communication that ultimately is beyond the use of the average citizen and is more frequently utilized to nefarious ends.

                  I reject the premise of your argument: secure communication is not more frequently used for nefarious purposes than non-nefarious purposes.

                  But even if I accepted that premise, I would still reject your argument. The underlying principle of your argument is misanthropy: humans are inherently evil. They will always choose evil, and therefore, they must never have an ability to effectively dissent from totalitarian control.

                  The dangers posed just by the French government greatly exceed the dangers posed by every single person who ever has or ever will “nefariously communicate” over every communications platform that has ever been or ever will be invented.

                  • lennybird@lemmy.world
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                    Yeah I haven’t committed to one side or the other yet. For me it’s less about misanthropy and more about transparency and accountability. The nature of the French democratic government means it is by extension held accountable to some albeit imperfect extent by the people. After all, the laws are by Transitive Property an extension of the people. But who holds accountable the sex trafficker that cannot be tracked? Conversely we can always say, “if you’re doing nothing wrong, then why do you need to hide it?” An age-old dilemma. There probably should be a reasonable middle-ground between privacy and accountability.

          • stupidcasey@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Why? They happily hand all your data over to whoever asks and so does everyone else that’s why they can single them out because you’re already bought and paid for.

        • webghost0101@sopuli.xyz
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          3 months ago

          It is but so are phones and computers in general. Same with cars, many crimes require transportation.

        • fine_sandy_bottom@lemmy.federate.cc
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          3 months ago

          As always, there’s a lot of nuance which is lost on Lemmy users.

          It’s a question of exactly what telegram is being used for, what telegram the company can reasonably be aware of, what they’ve been asked to do, and what they’ve done.

    • ravhall@discuss.online
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      3 months ago

      Gotta add that “pedocriminal” thing so people don’t argue against it. Don’t wanna be seen “supporting pedocriminals” by supporting encrypted communications