On Saturday evening, French police arrested the CEO of the Telegram messaging app, the Russian–born Pavel Durov. The French prosecutor said that the arrest concerned 'cyber–criminality' and allegations that Telegram is being used for illicit activities including child pornography and drug trafficking. Telegram has allegedly refused to share information with the French authorities following requests.
The Kremlin and Russian media have been quick to describe France's move against Durov and Telegram as an attack on freedom of speech. It is ironic to see the Russian state taking the side of Telegram which it banned between 2018 and 2020. Moreover, as I argue in this blog, it is a mistake to frame the arrest of Durov and investigation into Telegram as a free speech matter. In fact, Telegram undermines a key argument made by advocates of free speech.
Telegram takes on the dictators
In my book about Belarus's 2020 political crisis, I explain how citizens used messaging apps including Telegram to mobilise against the country's dictator. Several hundred thousand Belarusians joined street protests that year and the use of encrypted messaging apps allowed them to stay one step ahead of the authorities. Protest organisers could distribute rallying calls through 'channels' on Telegram; channels allowed a message to be sent out securely to a large number of subscribers without the authorities seeing it.
Owing to such features, Telegram has thrived in autocracies which circumscribe freedom of speech and suppress political dissent. It is difficult to keep on top of political debate in countries such as Russia or Belarus without using Telegram, so popular has the app become. Earlier this month Russia blocked a similar messaging app, Signal, for 'violating anti–terrorist legislation' – it is therefore ironic that the Kremlin is criticising France for doing something that looks remarkably similar.
In the past, Russia has itself moved against Durov which makes its ostensible defence of him this week a further irony. The Russian state's dissatisfaction with the enigmatic Durov – who always dresses in black, mostly avoids the public gaze and once 'gave up food' – predates Telegram. Durov's first venture was VKontakte, a social media site that is a blatant clone of Facebook for a Russian audience. In 2011, when Russian opponents of Vladimir Putin took to the streets in protests, the Russian state ordered VKontakte to shut down groups where opposition activists communicated. VKontakte refused.
Durov left Russia and, along with his brother, founded Telegram. Its encryption technologies clearly riled the Kremlin, although Telegram did eventually block some accounts used by the Russian political opposition at the time of a parliamentary election. There is also a suspicion that the Russian state – and also the Belarusian one – has managed to crack some of the encryption and is therefore less concerned about the app than it once was. Moreover, one last irony, the Russian military has been relying on Telegram for secure communications during its war against Ukraine.
Is France curbing free speech?
Russian officials were quick to accuse France of double standards. They claim that western states criticise Russia for efforts to regulate the internet while doing the same themselves. On that specific point: fair enough. On the surface, it would be churlish to deny that double standards abound in international politics. But the arguments being made by Russian officials and media personalities about free speech are dubious.
The Russian ombudsperson for human rights (yes, they have such a role) said, 'Everyone who strives for free speech protests [against Durov's arrest].' On her Telegram channel, Russia's foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said: 'Paris is destroying the values it has previously declared, including freedom of speech.' Some western figures have repeated such views. Elon Musk has, unsurprisingly, come out on the side of Durov. As has Tucker Carlson who accused France of 'censoring the truth'. Edward Snowden has chipped in, too.
But, while admittedly few details are available, it seems pretty clear that the primary motivation of the French authorities concerns Telegram's refusal to share information about users rather than an effort to shut down free speech. The discussion should primarily be about users' privacy rather than free speech. Carlson, and more surprisingly Snowden, completely miss the point.
As I see it, there are two relevant details in the free speech debate for the current case. In the first place, one argument for freedom of speech is that it is better for 'undesirable' discussions to take place in the open. The logic being that it is better to know someone harbours views we consider unsavoury – about, say, terrorism – by letting them express their views, rather than forcing them underground where they are harder to track. A discussion, where undesirable views are challenged and scrutinised to confirm their undesirability, is healthier for a society than one where such views fester in secret.
Secondly, few people are free speech absolutists in any case. Elon Musk may identity as such, but the majority of us don't. Most people recognise some limitations on free speech or free expression. Anyone who thinks child pornography should not be allowed, or that 'hate speech' on religious or racial grounds should not be allowed, or just one of these things, is not a free speech absolutist.
Why it's not about free speech
My point is that, even if one insists on making Durov's arrest about free speech, there is a trade off. Unless one is a free speech absolutist, then we consent to certain expression being proscribed, usually on the basis we think it can cause harm. Where to draw the line is a contentious issue since speech doesn't cause physical harm and it's hard to quantify the damage caused. But there is a line to draw somewhere. That is an argument for moderation of online platforms: not allowing someone to describe how to make a bomb, for example. This does not appear to be the basis for Durov's arrest, however. For that reason, the issue of limitations on free speech, while relevant, is not the primary issue here.
More importantly, encrypted messaging apps like Telegram undermine the other relevant detail in the free speech debate. They don't bring undesirable speech freely into the open or subject it to reasoned challenge. Quite the opposite. A discussion with end–to–end encryption is a private chat; the privacy is the paramount element, not the freedom of speech.
There are qualitative differences between online and offline privacy. The anonymity of many online conversations and the readiness with which like–minded individuals can find one another differ from the real world. That is particularly problematic in the case of illicit activities. If you agree with a country's laws against child pornography, then you don't tend to think people have a right to privacy in an offline world if that privacy allows them to violate the laws. Why would we permit it online?
There are also qualitative differences between privacy in democracies and autocracies. If you wish to express dissent with your government, then in a democracy it's (mostly) possible without privacy. In a dictatorship, where the state usually reaches deeper into people's lives, the privacy argument takes on stronger persuasive power; in such places, online privacy facilitates free speech and political dissent that is harder in the real world. The double standard that I mentioned above starts to look questionable.
There is an important debate to be had about privacy in an era where government surveillance is intensifying at pace. In some regards, Russia and France are grappling with similar issues: social media has increased the opportunities for surveillance, but it has also taken some power and control away from the state. All states have clamoured to adapt and it does occasionally impede on free speech. But much of the move to regulation is about other issues at core. In the past, Western states criticised Telegram because Islamic State militants used the app to communicate with each other securely, as well as to recruit fighters and spread propaganda. Only the last of those three uses, in my view, qualifies as a free speech issue.
The French authorities will decide Durov's, and Telegram's, fate. It will have wider implications. Elon Musk's X has reportedly been used by Yemeni Houthi rebels to buy and sell weapons, and Facebook, which recently introduced end–to–end encryption, could find itself in the same boat.
At issue is the balance between users' rights to privacy and what rights a government should have for information to be disclosed. That is an important debate and, in democracies at least, we are free to argue about it.
My book Belarus in Crisis: From Domestic Unrest to the Russia-Ukraine War is available now:
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Image credit: Image credit: Uberpenguin with the assistance of Ma t Gibbs (ma t[AT]alwayssleeping{dot}com) - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, htps://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1138982
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