“It’s common knowledge”, Matteo Flora’s thesis –

Censorship or countering web distortions? French authorities have extended the detention of Pavel Durov, founder and head of Telegram, following his arrest on Saturday for alleged crimes related to the controversial messaging app. The 39-year-old billionaire was questioned about alleged crimes including fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, organized crime and promotion of terrorism, and has taken no action to curb criminal use of the platform. We are in the gray area between technology and geopolitics. During the Tuesday 27 August episode of Omnibus, on La7, the expert teacher on web issues and popularizer Matteo Flora invites us to remember, first of all, that France is not currently contesting crimes against Durov, questioned as a person informed of the facts “in the context of one or more judicial proceedings that have a whole series of crimes, so it does not yet mean that they are contesting them against him” but they concern in various ways the Telegram messaging platform.

Alleged crimes involving trafficking of child pornography, weapons and narcotics. This does not mean that the Russian tycoon is an international trafficker, says Flora. So why was he stopped while passing through Paris? The main reason is the failure to comply with the judges’ orders and the lack of cooperation with law enforcement: “It is well known that Telegram is reluctant to collaborate with police forces around the world,” says the expert. Then there is the encryption part, the secrecy of the information conveyed with the app. But there is also “a geopolitical part, because Telegram is not just a messaging application, it actually hosts very large communities that especially during the Russian-Ukrainian conflict became the nerve center of connection for almost all operations.” Not only that. “In a couple of interviews, high-ranking Russian officials say they use Telegram for their attacks.”

So the judiciary is not only targeting encrypted communications used for possible crimes (encryption used by many other platforms), but also the aspect of communities that often write and communicate “in the clear”. But Telegram is reluctant to “block certain communities and certain channels”. A recent example is that of the online communities born during Covid, Flora recalls, and the “channels where fake green passes were sold”.