On Saturday, Pavel Durov, founder of the messaging app Telegram, was arrested by French authorities. Durov, who holds French citizenship, has refused to cooperate with French and EU authorities who have demanded access to his encrypted messaging app.
France is betting its last resources on Pavel Durov. I am not a legal scholar and I am in no way qualified to say whether Durov is guilty of something. But the “crimes” with which the French authorities accuse him are dubious. Several of the charges concern “complicity,” including complicity in the distribution of child sexual abuse material. The French authorities are not arguing that Durov is part of a pedophile ring, but rather that because Telegram allows pedophiles to connect and share their vile material, this makes him legally complicit. It is hard to see how this would not apply to any social media platform, or perhaps to the post office.
Other charges relate to the encryption itself, including “providing cryptology services for the purpose of ensuring confidentiality without certified declaration.” The “cryptology services,” of course, are the Telegram app itself.
Again, it is not for me to say whether Durov is guilty.. But reading the indictment, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that France is trying to punish an app owner because he refused to moderate his content to the liking of French authorities. Telegram, in response to the charges, has argued that it moderates child sexual abuse material. What level of moderation is sufficient to ensure that an app founder is not guilty of crimes committed by users on the platform? The French authorities’ answer appears to be “whatever level we say.”
The impression that the accusation is partly politically motivated becomes even stronger when one considers the European Union’s recent crusade against social media platforms and the speech permitted on them.
Telegram is not the first to face the wrath of European bureaucrats. Ever since buying Twitter, Elon Musk has found himself at odds with Brussels.
At the center is the Digital Services Act (DSA), passed by the European Union in 2022, around the same time that Musk finalized his purchase of Twitter. Under the DSA, large online platforms like Twitter/X have a legal responsibility to prevent the spread of so-called disinformation. The DSA has been criticized for being vague and for allowing policymakers to define “disinformation,” something that could be used to stifle political opposition.
Last month, the European Commission formally charged Elon Musk with allowing his platform to be used to spread disinformation and illegal content. The charges against Twitter/X are the first under the DSA. Among other things, the EU argues that Musk allowing users to pay for blue verification badges violates the DSA; their argument is that since blue badges are traditionally a sign of credibility, Musk can’t just sell them to any user for $8.
As if relations between Musk and Brussels weren’t bad enough, things came to a head earlier this month when Musk interviewed Donald Trump live on Twitter/X. Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for France, published an open letter warning Musk of consequences if the interview went ahead, arguing that Musk was allowing Trump to spread “disinformation” on the platform. Unsurprisingly, Elon Musk didn’t care and responded cheekily with a meme. Humiliated, Breton was forced to back down.
Emmanuel Macron has assured everyone that the accusation against Durov is not political and that his country is committed to freedom of expression. However, Macron’s record on freedom of expression is not reassuring: just last month, Macron suggested that authorities should have the right to completely block the use of social media during the riots, a pastime that has become quite common under Macron’s reign. Shutting down social media to prevent protesters from organizing is a strategy previously used by countries like Egypt and Syria during the Arab Spring.
The attentive reader may notice that most of these developments have happened either during the last two months or in the last few years. What triggered this?
First, the culture around free speech has never been stronger in Europe. As a continent, we prefer homogeneity to innovation and thought-provoking discourse. The kind of control over the press by governing parties in many European countries goes far beyond the left-wing bias of the American media. The inability to control information and direct political dialogue on social media is making many European policymakers nervous.
Second, while the rise of national conservative and populist parties has been a story for more than a decade in Europe, many prominent European politicians genuinely believed a few years ago that they had finally managed to put a stop to the momentum of these parties. Brexit has turned out to be much more complicated than the “sunlit highlands” promised by some supporters, causing many national conservatives across the continent to back away from demands that their countries also leave the EU. After the refugee crisis of 2015-2016, migration volumes fell for a few years and things seemed to be stabilising. Then the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and another wave of refugees from the Middle East and North Africa shook things up again.
Rather than seeking introspection and internal reform, the EU blames social media, particularly Elon Musk, for giving its critics a platform where they have been able to rally. In June, national conservative and populist Eurosceptic parties won more seats in the European Parliament than ever before. Within the European Parliament, opposition to the DSA has been led by the likes of Sweden’s Charlie Weimers, who thanked Elon Musk earlier this year for “freeing the bird” and turning Twitter/X into a “bastion of free speech.” Weimers has called on Musk to stand firm against the EU’s “Ministry of Truth” created by the Digital Services Act, and so far, Musk has done so.
Third, the EU’s global influence is waning. Since the 2008 financial crisis, economic growth in the US has outpaced that on the other side of the Atlantic. While the EU is a world leader in regulation, it struggles to innovate—and, as you might imagine, these are interconnected. In 2020, the EU lost a member state for the first time when the UK decided to go its own way. While one might argue about the wisdom of this choice, there is little doubt that it has weakened the EU. Many also forget that part of the motivation behind Brexit was that the UK wanted to be able to strike its own trade deals with fast-growing developing economies, rather than be tied to the anchor of the single market. With the EU mired in economic stagnation, this gamble may yet pay off in the long run.
The weaker the EU becomes, the more it feels the need to assert itself. Forcing Musk and other tech billionaires to their knees would be a political victory through assertion, perhaps not so much of dominance as just of relevanceAnd while it was France, not the EU itself, that charged Pavel Durov, it still counts. Durov is also a much more accessible target than Musk, since he holds EU citizenship. Whether Durov is guilty or not, it’s hard not to interpret his arrest as a warning.
In some ways, the fight against free speech on social media has become something of a culture war issue for European Union politicians, used to distract the masses from the real problems facing the continent. It is no coincidence that a French EU commissioner and French officials are at the epicenter of this mess, about a month after a legislative election called by Macron left France in a deadlock. Macron has since refused to appoint a left-wing prime minister. e refused to cooperate with Marine Le Pen’s National Rally (which would have given the right a majority).
As a European, I consider the developments of the past few months to be a clear indication that policymakers in Brussels are struggling to deal with the popular discontent expressed against them in the recent elections, opting for censorship rather than dialogue. Regardless of one’s opinion on the platforms that are being targeted by Brussels, it is crucial for freedom of expression that the EU is not allowed to win this battle.