{"id":2332376,"date":"2024-08-28T08:35:57","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T12:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/arrest-of-telegram-ceo-marks-a-step-toward-authoritarianism\/"},"modified":"2024-08-28T08:42:01","modified_gmt":"2024-08-28T12:42:01","slug":"arrest-of-telegram-ceo-marks-a-step-toward-authoritarianism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/arrest-of-telegram-ceo-marks-a-step-toward-authoritarianism\/","title":{"rendered":"Arrest Of Telegram CEO Marks A Step Toward Authoritarianism"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Farrest-of-telegram-ceo-marks-a-step-toward-authoritarianism%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2332376&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The \u2064article discusses\u2062 the recent arrest \u2062of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in Paris, positioning it within a broader \u200bcritique of state repression against free speech. The author \u2063argues that media coverage presents Durov, born in Russia, as complicit in\u200b serious crimes\u2062 like child pornography and drug trafficking,\u200b which creates a misleading narrative about his involvement in criminal\u2064 activities or those of\u2064 Telegram. Instead, the author contends \u200dthat Durov&#8217;s arrest is politically motivated, stemming from Telegram&#8217;s commitment to free speech, contrasting it \u2063with the increasing censorship and control over social media in\u200c Western democracies.<\/p>\n<p>This trend of\u200d targeting individuals and platforms that\u2063 uphold free speech reflects a worrying shift in governance, whereby administrative bureaucracies perceive dissent and free expression as\u2064 threats. The author highlights examples of\u2062 state censorship in the UK and the US, including the admission by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg of assisting \u200bin government censorship efforts, calling into question the efficacy of \u2063the First Amendment in practice.<\/p>\n<p>The article suggests that the underlying issue is a shift towards unaccountable bureaucratic governance that operates beyond electoral politics, making traditional political remedies ineffective. This is exemplified by the political crisis in France, where President Macron refused to appoint a prime minister from a coalition that won the most parliamentary \u2063seats, further illustrating the disconnect between elected representatives and the \u2062public. The author concludes by emphasizing \u200bthe urgent need\u2063 to understand the nature\u2062 and consequences of this bureaucratic control over free \u200dspeech and public discourse.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Reading the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-biden-family-racket-is-everything-leftists-fabricated-about-the-trumps-and-media-are-crickets\/\" title=\"The Biden Family Racket Is Everything Leftists Fabricated About The Trumps, And Media Are Crickets\">corporate media coverage<\/a> of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov&rsquo;s arrest in Paris this week, you&rsquo;d think he was a Kremlin spy or an international terrorist, not the founder of a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-admin-indefinitely-suspends-trump-tiktok-deal\/\" title=\"Biden Admin \u2018Indefinitely\u2019 Suspends Trump TikTok Deal\">popular social media app<\/a> with nearly a billion users.<\/p>\n<p>The charges against Durov &mdash; whom the media never fail to inform us was&nbsp;<em>born in Russia<\/em> &mdash; include &ldquo;complicity in the distribution of child pornography and selling of drugs, money laundering, and a refusal to cooperate with law enforcement,&rdquo;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/08\/26\/business\/telegram-founder-arrest-france.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">according to The New York Times<\/a>. Nearly every news outlet said something similar, that Durov is &ldquo;complicit&rdquo; in serious crimes like child pornography, creating the impression that Durov is somehow personally involved in nefarious criminal enterprises &mdash; or that Telegram itself is a criminal enterprise.<\/p>\n<p>In reality, Telegram and Durov are under investigation in France because the social media app maintains a more rigorous commitment to free speech than most of its competitors (with the possible exception of X under Elon Musk, who has&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1827484648454418881\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">spoken out against Durov&rsquo;s arrest<\/a>&nbsp;as an affront to free speech).&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>What we&rsquo;re seeing with the arrest of Durov, in other words, is the criminalization of free speech by a state, in this case Emmanuel Macron&rsquo;s France, under the pretext that lightly moderating content on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/how-woke-antitrust-may-become-the-law-without-a-vote\/\" title=\"How Woke Antitrust May Become the Law Without a Vote\">big social media platforms<\/a>, as Telegram does, is tantamount to complicity in whatever the users of the app say or do. This is nonsense of course. No one, not even the French president, would hold Mark Zuckerberg liable for everything Facebook or Instagram users post. The purpose of targeting Durov in particular is to bring Telegram under the control of the state so that it can be used as an instrument of propaganda and social control.<\/p>\n<p>We see this across the West. Once-liberal democracies are now effectively controlled by regimes that are increasingly open in their hostility to free speech and freedom of conscience. In Britain during the recent riots, police went door-to-door arresting and jailing citizens who happened to post disfavored opinions and memes on social media. Here in the United States, every day it seems we learn more about how the federal government compels social media companies to do its bidding.<\/p>\n<p>In fact just this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg sent a letter to Congress admitting that Facebook helped the feds&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/08\/27\/zuckerberg-admits-facebook-helped-feds-on-covid-censorship-election-interference\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">implement a censorship regime<\/a>&nbsp;designed to suppress Americans&rsquo; right to free speech in 2020 during the Covid pandemic and in the run-up to the presidential election. We already knew from the Twitter Files that this was happening, but Zuckerberg&rsquo;s letter confirms just how pervasive and widespread the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fifth-circuit-to-rehear-big-tech-free-speech-case-as-supreme-court-eyes-intervention\/\" title=\"Fifth Circuit to reconsider Big Tech free speech case as Supreme Court considers involvement.\">federal censorship effort<\/a> was.<\/p>\n<p>That this could happen in America, which unlike France and Britain has a First Amendment that&rsquo;s supposed to protect citizens from censorship and viewpoint discrimination, is an indication of how illiberal the regimes of the West have become. If the White House and the executive branch can bully social media companies into censoring private citizens engaged in political speech, then the First Amendment is a dead letter in America.<\/p>\n<p>None of this is really in dispute at this point. It is a trend so obvious that you&rsquo;d have to be dishonest or in willful denial to argue it isn&rsquo;t happening. The question is: why? What changed that free speech is now seen as a grave threat to the social order &mdash; even to the preservation of democracy &mdash; in the West?&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The short answer is that the once-liberal democracies have been taken over by administrative bureaucracies, or what Curtis Yarvin has called an&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/im1776.com\/2024\/04\/11\/rufo-vs-yarvin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">institutional oligarchy<\/a>, which views not just free speech but free society itself as a mortal threat to its rule. This bureaucracy &mdash; what we might also call the administrative or deep state &mdash; is totally unaccountable to the people it seeks to rule, and considers them subjects to command or cogs to manage, not citizens from whom they derive their just powers. Indeed, it&rsquo;s the prospect of accountability that sets the bureaucratic regime against the people, and rightly sees them as a real threat to its rule.<\/p>\n<p>The key thing to understand about this institutional oligarchy is that&nbsp;<em>you cannot vote it out of power<\/em>. The people who run the regime were not voted into office, and cannot be voted out. The bureaucracy exists above and outside of electoral politics as they are normally understood, and so resorting to electoral politics to overthrow the regime will only get you so far. Consider Brexit, or, closer to home, what the executive branch agencies did to the Trump administration. It didn&rsquo;t matter that the American people voted Trump into office, the machinery of the federal bureaucracy immediately went to war against Trump, hamstringing his administration from day one.<\/p>\n<p>A more recent case in point will suffice to illustrate what I mean. Back in France, where Durov has been arrested but not yet formally charged with a crime, Macron has triggered a political crisis by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/world\/france-faces-political-crisis-after-macron-rejects-left-wing-pm\/ar-AA1pwyiy\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">refusing to appoint a prime minister<\/a> from the coalition that won the most parliamentary seats in last month&rsquo;s snap election.<\/p>\n<p>Macron called for the snap election following European Parliament elections that saw France&rsquo;s right-wing National Rally party win the biggest share of the vote. The results of the snap election left France&rsquo;s National Assembly divided into three roughly equal blocks: left, center, and right. An ad-hoc coalition of every left-of-center party, led by the New Popular Front, won the most seats in the assembly and therefore has the right to form a new government. (This left-wing alliance, it should be noted, formed solely for the purpose of thwarting the right-wing National Rally, led by Marine Le Pen, which it barely managed to do.)<\/p>\n<p>Yet Macron is blocking the formation of a new government in what can fairly be called a soft coup: the losers of the election, Macron and his allies, are refusing to cede power to the winners. Despite losing national elections, Macron&rsquo;s party is still in power. The only reason the French president has given so far is that, in his view, appointing a prime minister from the New Popular Front would lead to an immediate no-confidence vote, the collapse the new government, and the &ldquo;weakening&rdquo; of the country.<\/p>\n<p>Understand what this means: across the West, the people are not really in charge. And if the people are not in charge, why should the state allow them to post whatever they want on social media? Why should they be allowed freedom of speech?<\/p>\n<p>In fact, if the people are not in charge, then allowing them to say whatever they like is actually a great threat to the regime. If free speech is allowed to flourish, the truth of the situation might come out. The people might realize what has happened, that an unaccountable bureaucracy has usurped the democratic process. And so <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/american-idol-accused-of-using-conway-daughter-for-ratings\/\" title=\"\u2018American Idol\u2019 Accused Of Using Conway Daughter For Ratings\">social media apps<\/a> like Telegram and X must be brought under the control of the regime. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/im1776.com\/2024\/08\/24\/rfk-address-to-the-nation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">his recent speech<\/a> endorsing former President Donald Trump, &ldquo;governments and oppressors don&rsquo;t censor lies, they don&rsquo;t fear lies. They fear the truth, and that&rsquo;s what they censor.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. He is the author of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Pagan-America-Decline-Christianity-Dark\/dp\/1684514444\/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Pagan+America&amp;qid=1695306441&amp;sr=8-1\"><i>Pagan America: the Decline of Christianity and the Dark Age to Come<\/i><\/a>. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reading the mainstream media&#8217;s portrayal of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov&#8217;s arrest in Paris this week, one might assume he is a Kremlin agent or an international terrorist rather than the creator of a widely-used social media platform with close to a billion users. The allegations against Durov\u2014who is frequently noted as being Russian by the media\u2014include &#8220;complicity in the distribution of child pornography, drug trafficking, money laundering, and failure to cooperate with law enforcement,&#8221; according to The New York Times. Almost every news outlet has echoed similar sentiments, suggesting that Durov is &#8220;complicit&#8221; in serious crimes like child pornography, which creates an impression that he is personally involved in criminal activities or that Telegram itself operates as a criminal organization.<\/p>\n<p>In truth, both Telegram and Durov are under investigation in France because the app upholds a stronger commitment to free speech compared to many competitors (with X under Elon Musk possibly being an exception; Musk has criticized Durov\u2019s arrest as an attack on free speech). What we are witnessing with Durov&#8217;s arrest is essentially the state criminalizing free speech\u2014specifically Emmanuel Macron\u2019s France\u2014under the guise that minimal content moderation on large social media platforms like Telegram equates to complicity in user actions. This notion is absurd; no one would hold Mark Zuckerberg accountable for everything posted by Facebook or Instagram users. The real aim behind targeting Durov appears to be bringing Telegram under state control so it can serve as a tool for propaganda and social regulation.<\/p>\n<p>This trend can be observed throughout Western nations where once-liberal democracies have come under regimes increasingly hostile toward free speech and individual conscience. For instance, during recent riots in Britain, police conducted door-to-door arrests of citizens who expressed unpopular opinions online. In the United States, revelations continue about how federal authorities pressure social media companies into compliance.<\/p>\n<p>Just this week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged in a letter to Congress that Facebook assisted federal efforts to implement censorship aimed at suppressing Americans&#8217; rights during 2020 amid COVID-19 and prior to presidential elections. While previous reports from Twitter Files indicated such practices were occurring, Zuckerberg\u2019s admission underscores their extensive nature.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that such censorship could occur in America\u2014a country with First Amendment protections against censorship\u2014is indicative of how illiberal Western regimes have become. If government entities can intimidate social media platforms into silencing private citizens engaged in political discourse, then First Amendment rights effectively cease to exist.<\/p>\n<p>This situation isn&#8217;t really up for debate anymore; it&#8217;s so evident that only dishonesty or willful ignorance could deny its existence. The pressing question remains: why? What has shifted so dramatically that free speech now poses perceived threats not only to societal order but also democracy itself within these nations?<\/p>\n<p>The brief answer lies in how former liberal democracies have been overtaken by administrative bureaucracies\u2014or what Curtis Yarvin refers to as institutional oligarchies\u2014that view both free expression and society at large as existential threats against their authority. This bureaucracy operates without accountability towards those it governs and perceives individuals more as subjects or components rather than citizens whose consent legitimizes power structures. Indeed, it\u2019s this potential for accountability which positions bureaucratic regimes at odds with people they govern.<\/p>\n<p>A crucial aspect of understanding this institutional oligarchy is recognizing its immunity from electoral processes; those who manage these systems were never elected nor can they be removed through voting mechanisms typically associated with democratic governance. Thus relying solely on electoral politics will yield limited results when attempting change within such frameworks\u2014as seen through Brexit or how executive agencies opposed Trump despite his election victory.<\/p>\n<p>A recent example illustrates this point well: back again in France where Durov was arrested but not formally charged yet\u2014Macron has instigated political turmoil by refusing appointment of a prime minister from coalition parties winning majority seats during last month\u2019s snap election following European Parliament elections favoring right-wing National Rally party led by Marine Le Pen.<\/p>\n<p>Despite losing national elections overall power remains held by Macron&#8217;s party while blocking formation new government represents what could fairly be termed soft coup\u2014the defeated parties resist yielding authority even after electoral loss citing concerns over potential instability should they concede leadership roles based upon parliamentary outcomes reflecting public sentiment shifts away from traditional ruling factions towards emerging coalitions representing diverse interests across left-center-right spectrum dynamics shaping contemporary French politics today!<\/p>\n<p>What does all this imply? It suggests across Western societies people lack genuine control over governance structures influencing their lives\u2014and if true then why should states permit unrestricted expression via platforms like social media? Why allow freedom-of-speech when unaccountable authorities perceive open dialogue potentially undermining established order?<\/p>\n<p>Indeed if populations lack agency allowing them unrestricted communication poses significant risks toward regime stability! Should unfiltered discourse flourish truths may emerge revealing bureaucratic usurpation undermining democratic processes leading ultimately toward demands accountability challenging status quo! As Robert F Kennedy Jr recently articulated \u201cgovernments don\u2019t censor lies\u2014they fear truths\u201d hence justifying measures taken curb dissenting narratives threatening prevailing power dynamics! <\/p>\n<p>John Daniel Davidson serves as senior editor at The Federalist contributing writings featured across various publications including Wall Street Journal Claremont Review Books New York Post among others authoring works exploring themes surrounding decline Christianity future societal implications follow him @johnddavidson Twitter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":518,"featured_media":2332377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Pavel-Durov.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[5175,20521,3850,33068,3757],"class_list":["post-2332376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-arrest","tag-authoritarianism","tag-ceo","tag-freedom-of-speech","tag-telegram"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Pavel-Durov.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/518"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2332376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2332376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2332377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2332376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2332376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2332376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}