Telegram founder charged with a number of crimes related to the platform

Durov was arrested when his plane landed in Paris a few days ago and was finally charged yesterday. Ars Technica got hold of a copy of the charges which, with a bit of help from Google Translate, are summarised below.

All of these seem directly related to Durov’s ownership of Telegram and it seems he is being held personally liable for criminal acts that allegedly used that platform in their perpetration. He has been released on €5 million bail and banned from leaving France and has been under investigation by JUNALCO (National Jurisdiction for the Fight against Organised Crime) and other French agencies since February this year, prompted by his claimed lack of response to judicial requests.

Separately, Reuters reports that a US appeals court has ruled that social media platform TikTok must defend a lawsuit accusing it of complicity in the death of a ten-year-old girl. The action has been brought by the girl’s mother, who alleges her daughter’s death was the direct result of a dangerous viral fad disseminated over TikTok.

In the US, internet platforms are protected by Section 230 of the Communications Act, which states: ‘No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.’ But the adjudication in this case is that the dissemination of material by the platform’s algorithm is not protected.

If TikTok loses this case the legal precedent set would appear to totally nullify section 230 protections, since pretty much all internet platforms use algorithms to favour certain content. At the very least it would compel them to fundamentally alter those algorithms to eliminate any content that could possibly be considered harmful in any way.

It may be pure coincidence that Telegram and TikTok are the only two major social media and messaging platforms (outside of China) that don’t fall under the direct jurisdiction and control of the US and its allies. But its easy to piece together these and other examples of state action against internet platforms as a bid to exert greater control over them. Some major US commentators certainly seem to see things that way.