Pavel Durov finally caves in to the tyranny of the French authorities as he orders a crackdown on illegal contents

Telegram finally caves in to the tyranny of the law enforcers as it orders a crackdown on the illegal contents on the messaging platform. This marks a drastic change for Telegram, which has had a reputation for non-cooperation with authorities.

But since the arrest of Durov by French authorities back in August, it seems that Telegram is ready to change its stance when it comes to free speech. In a Business Insider statement by a Telegram representatives said " we have "nothing to hide"

Crackdown on Illegal content

Weeks after his arrest, Telegram founder and chief executive Pavel Durov announced that the company has been using artificial intelligence (AI) to comb through the messaging platform to remove any content that might be deemed "problematic".

On top of the crackdown of illegal content on Telegram, the messaging platform has also announced the update to the terms of service and privacy policy of Telegram, saying that telegram would no quelms giving the IP address and phone numbers of those who abuse and break the rules to the relevant authorities.

Durov wrote that these changes are to deter criminals from abusing the platform and using it to promote illegal goods.

Fall of a free speech hero

Telegram was always adamant that the Telegram should not be held responsible for the actions of bad actors who misuse the platform for their own personal agenda.

There were also many times when Telegram had even chosen to leave a country instead of giving in to the authorities. For example, Telegram was banned in Russia for refusing to hand over the encryption keys to enable surveillance; or when Telegram refused to block channels of peaceful protesters, ultimately leading to the banning of Telegram in Iran.

Durov even once said on his private Telegram channel that

"Sometimes we can't agree with a country's regulators on the right balance between privacy and security. In those cases, we are ready to leave that country."

But now it seems that Durov has suddenly changed his tune as authorities close in on silencing him and his encrypted messaging platform for free speech violations. All of the sudden, Durov is on board complying with the government demanding that he police the Telegram platform for "Problematic content" that the authorities do not want to see on the messaging platform.

Is Telegram overstepping over the lines here?

This begs the question if Telegram is doing the right thing or are they now overstepping the lines of free speech.

I personally fully agree with the initial statement of Telegram, that the owners of the platform should not be penalized for the abuse of the platform. Thus did Telegram really have to overstep their boundary to roll out a crackdown to remove all the illegal contents from their platform.

Even if they do nothing and take a more laissez-faire approach to the case, I don't think that Telegram fans would fault Durov and his team for it. So what exactly did the French authorities threaten Durov with that could spook him so much that he would give in to the demands of the authorities?

While I do agree that Telegram should not be misused to spread illegal content, I also can't help that Telegram is slowly losing its power as an encrypted messaging app that stands as an advocate of free speech.

If Telegram starts caving in for every request that the authorities are imposing on it, then won't the messaging platform lose its reputation as a platform of free speech? While it is easy to say that we should remove illegal content like pornography, when we are talking about other topics like misinformation, it becomes a much greyer topic as what constitutes misinformation? What is a person conveying an opinion that is contradictory to the opinions of the government, would that also be deemed as misinformation?