https://www.rt.com/information/603055-telegram-durov-eu-censorship/How the EU tightened the noose on Telegram

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2 months ago

https://www.rt.com/information/603055-telegram-durov-eu-censorship/How the EU tightened the noose on Telegram

Earlier than Pavel Durov’s arrest, the messaging app’s “Russian origins” positioned it within the bloc’s crosshairs

The arrest in France of Telegram founder Pavel Durov is the newest escalation in an EU-wide marketing campaign towards the Russian entrepreneur and his privacy-focused messaging app. After restricted bans in some member states, officers in Brussels introduced earlier this yr that they might bend their very own legal guidelines to pressure censorship guidelines onto the platform.

Durov was arrested at Paris-Le Bourget Airport on Saturday, instantly after arriving from Azerbaijan by non-public jet. In line with French media, prosecutors in Paris plan to accuse the 39-year-old of complicity in drug trafficking, pedophilia offenses, and fraud, arguing that Telegram’s inadequate content material moderation, its robust encryption instruments, and its alleged lack of cooperation with police permit criminals to flourish on the app.

Within the years main as much as Durov’s arrest, EU officers and particular person member states have focused Telegram with bans, rules, and threats of authorized motion.

2021: Germany requires motionAfter a gaggle of radical anti-vaxxers had been arrested for allegedly plotting on Telegram to kill the governor of the state of Saxony in 2021, German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann referred to as for an EU-wide effort to limit the platform.

All through the coronavirus pandemic, governors and regional inside ministers in Germany had expressed displeasure with Telegram’s refusal to ban anti-lockdown protesters, and Buschmann argued that frequent EU motion would “make an even bigger impression” on Telegram than “every nation making an attempt to do this by itself.”

Telegram was and nonetheless is headquartered in Dubai, and Durov reportedly refused to speak with the German authorities. German Inside Minister Nancy Faeser warned on the time that Berlin was “not going to place up with” Durov’s refusal to cooperate.

2022-2024: Bans and restrictionsThe Ukraine battle gave nationwide and native governments throughout the West an excuse to throttle Telegram, with the Norwegian Justice Ministry citing the platform’s “Russian origins” when it forbade authorities workers from putting in the app on their work units final yr.

Amsterdam’s municipal authorities additionally invoked the alleged menace of “international espionage” when it issued an identical ban for workers of the Dutch metropolis final week, whereas France final yr ordered civil servants to change from Telegram and different messaging apps to locally-developed options over safety fears.

In March of this yr, Spain’s excessive courtroom ordered the nation’s cell suppliers to dam entry to Telegram, whereas claims of copyright violations might be investigated. Though the ruling was overturned inside days, the investigation is ongoing.

2024: Censorship crackdownThe EU’s Digital Providers Act (DSA), which got here into pressure earlier this yr, lists platforms with greater than 45 million month-to-month customers as ‘Very Giant On-line Platforms’, requiring them to adjust to a number of knowledge safety and advertising-related guidelines. Such platforms are additionally required to “tackle the unfold of disinformation,” a time period that the DSA mentions greater than a dozen instances with out offering a definition.

Whereas Telegram claims to have 41 million month-to-month customers within the EU, European Fee Vice President for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova informed Bloomberg in Might that the platform is a “particular case,” and could be investigated and doubtlessly positioned on the listing anyway.

Jourova accused Telegram of enabling the unfold of Russian “disinformation,” and referred to as it “a problem” that the platform is “particularly energetic within the jap member states the place we now have a Russian-speaking minority.”

Forward of this potential regulation, Telegram has appointed a Brussels-based firm as its authorized consultant within the EU, that means that Belgian authorities can be answerable for imposing EU regulation towards Durov’s firm. Final week, the Belgian Institute of Put up and Telecommunications (BIPT) introduced that it nonetheless couldn’t show that Telegram had greater than 41 million month-to-month customers.

The DSA permits the EU to superb platforms as a lot as 6% of their international annual turnover in the event that they break its guidelines. The regulation additionally permits repeat offenders to be banned from working within the bloc.

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