Tech barons were untouchable. Then France came for Telegram

The bosses of social media giants such as Meta and Google have been largely untouchable even as their platforms have taken an ever tighter grip on the lives of billions of users.
Despite scandal after scandal — from Instagram being accused of wilfully destroying the mental health of young girls to Google allegedly running a monopoly — the chief executives of big technology companies have mostly avoided serious repercussions.
That may have changed with the arrest of Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, who was charged on Wednesday with aiding and abetting crimes including child abuse, drug trafficking and money laundering.
Critics have long complained that major online platforms do not do enough to police the content they allow to be posted and spread online. However, an executive being held responsible for allegedly failing to moderate his encrypted messaging site is an extraordinary escalation.
Telegram has been linked to criminal and violent organisations, from Islamic State terrorists to county-lines drug traffickers and the organisers of this summer’s riots in the UK.
Although it has been a key communication platform for those who cannot speak freely — for example, people living in authoritarian regimes — the app is also a favoured means of communication for Russia’s war machine.
• Pavel Durov: arrested executive ‘like Russian military comms chief’
As such, French prosecutors allege that Telegram’s encryption and lack of moderation effectively make it complicit in serious crimes.
However, Durov’s defenders argue that expecting him to prevent these activities is as unreasonable as holding President Macron accountable for every crime in France.
Among other technology titans, Elon Musk may have been especially alarmed by Durov’s arrest. The owner of X has emerged as a global standard-bearer for free speech and in recent weeks has been vocal in his criticism of the British government for its response to the riots sparked by the murder of three girls in Southport.
Musk angered Sir Keir Starmer by saying civil war was “inevitable” in the UK and compared attempts to restrict speech in the wake of the stabbings to life in the Soviet Union.
“Moderation is a propaganda word for censorship,” Musk said, explaining why he opposes attempts to control content on his platform.
After Durov, 39, was detained, Musk posted his “POV” (point of view) on X: “It’s 2030 in Europe and you’re being executed for liking a meme.”
Although his post may have been an exaggerated joke, Musk is surely wondering how long he can maintain his laissez-faire approach to content moderation before he, too, comes under investigation by a nation state. Indeed, some called for Musk, 53, the world’s richest man, to be arrested in the wake of the Southport tragedy.
If Musk does start to think twice before jumping on a plane to Europe, he would not be the only tech boss to do so. Chris Pavlovski runs Rumble, a video platform beloved by conservatives for its commitment to free speech.
In response to Durov’s arrest, Pavlovski announced he had left Europe and called for a boycott of France. Rumble ceased operating in the country in 2022 after refusing demands to remove Russian state media accounts from the platform.
“This has to mean something, in the name of freedom of expression,” Pavlovski said this week. “Rumble is already closed in France, and now I personally won’t touch a French product. My wallet will be my voice.”
Europe and the United States appear to be heading in different directions when it comes to free speech.
This week Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive of Meta, admitted that he regretted agreeing to censor information about Covid-19 during the pandemic under pressure from the Biden administration. The admission came in a letter to a senior House Republican.
Free speech has emerged as a partisan issue in the US, with conservatives who feel targeted by the tech giants railing against censorship. Those aligned with Democrats argue an online free-for-all represents a danger to the common good.
American conservatives are protected by the First Amendment, which guarantees the right to freedom of speech. Europeans have no equivalent and the European Union has taken a tough stance on moderating online content.
Although Durov was detained and charged under French law, the EU’s Digital Services Act is an attempt to bring social media giants to heel.
The prosecution of the Russian billionaire will only embolden such efforts, especially if he is convicted at trial.