Rachel Marsden:
"...Russian Pavel Durov mysteriously managed to get French citizenship in 2021 without ever even living in the country. Normally, French citizenship requires proof of five years of residency, and seemingly more importantly to French authorities, five full years of paying income tax in France. Instead, Durov managed to get fast-tracked citizenship through a French Foreign Ministry initiative that awards naturalization based on some kind of action that contributes to the image, prosperity, and international relations of France. No one has been able to actually articulate what exactly Durov has contributed to France beyond badmouthing Russia, or having created the chat app that French media have long qualified as the top choice of French President Emmanuel Macron and his entourage since at least 2016.
Just as equally puzzling is the fact that just three years later, the judicial branch of the same French government that gifted him with a highly political shortcut to citizenship is now suddenly accusing him of taking an overly laid-back approach to his platform’s content. French press reports have been citing anonymous judicial sources close to the case, alleging that the app has turned into a giant free-for-all for assorted scum of the earth (in addition the aforementioned elites): terrorists, money launderers, drug traffickers, pedophiles.
Durov was singing a tune that the West really liked for a while, about how he was pressured by the Russian government over content control and backdoor access and how he basically just flipped them off heroically. His persecution by Russia was such that he was never actually arrested or charged with anything there, and Telegram is still operational in Russia while Durov is free to go around the world promoting himself as a professional victim of his homeland. Durov even fell right in line with top-down EU demands to censor RT and other Russian media. But there has been a significant shift recently. He had started to change his tune to one that probably wasn’t such a crowd pleaser for the Western establishment, suggesting a few months ago in an interview with Tucker Carlson that the FBI tried to convince one of his engineers to basically start installing Western-friendly backdoors that would allow intelligence services easy access to encrypted Telegram content. He added that they seemed particularly interested in infiltrating groups that opposed Covid mandates and jabs.
Former Russian President Dimitry Medvedev said in the wake of Durov’s arrest that he previously warned him that he’d have problems in virtually any country where he didn’t want to cooperate with the authorities on major crimes. Not that people denouncing Covid mandates are committing major crimes, which makes you wonder how much of this is really just France playing up the major crime element in order to tackle much lesser things that they consider a threat to their own power rather than to society.
Durov may now be on the verge of learning that despite his anti-Russian rhetoric, Russia could actually start looking not too bad by comparison the minute that his new pals decide that they’re fed up with him – and your app goes from being the toast of the Elysee to the trash bin.
...Of course there’s no actual proof that this has to do with free speech, but the Western establishment does have a nasty habit of cloaking authoritarianism in national security or serious criminality, which makes it impossible to rule out that being the case here, as well. And once the authorities get access or control under the pretext of wanting to curtail serious crime, they then have that access for absolutely everything.
"...Russian Pavel Durov mysteriously managed to get French citizenship in 2021 without ever even living in the country. Normally, French citizenship requires proof of five years of residency, and seemingly more importantly to French authorities, five full years of paying income tax in France. Instead, Durov managed to get fast-tracked citizenship through a French Foreign Ministry initiative that awards naturalization based on some kind of action that contributes to the image, prosperity, and international relations of France. No one has been able to actually articulate what exactly Durov has contributed to France beyond badmouthing Russia, or having created the chat app that French media have long qualified as the top choice of French President Emmanuel Macron and his entourage since at least 2016.
Just as equally puzzling is the fact that just three years later, the judicial branch of the same French government that gifted him with a highly political shortcut to citizenship is now suddenly accusing him of taking an overly laid-back approach to his platform’s content. French press reports have been citing anonymous judicial sources close to the case, alleging that the app has turned into a giant free-for-all for assorted scum of the earth (in addition the aforementioned elites): terrorists, money launderers, drug traffickers, pedophiles.
Durov was singing a tune that the West really liked for a while, about how he was pressured by the Russian government over content control and backdoor access and how he basically just flipped them off heroically. His persecution by Russia was such that he was never actually arrested or charged with anything there, and Telegram is still operational in Russia while Durov is free to go around the world promoting himself as a professional victim of his homeland. Durov even fell right in line with top-down EU demands to censor RT and other Russian media. But there has been a significant shift recently. He had started to change his tune to one that probably wasn’t such a crowd pleaser for the Western establishment, suggesting a few months ago in an interview with Tucker Carlson that the FBI tried to convince one of his engineers to basically start installing Western-friendly backdoors that would allow intelligence services easy access to encrypted Telegram content. He added that they seemed particularly interested in infiltrating groups that opposed Covid mandates and jabs.
Former Russian President Dimitry Medvedev said in the wake of Durov’s arrest that he previously warned him that he’d have problems in virtually any country where he didn’t want to cooperate with the authorities on major crimes. Not that people denouncing Covid mandates are committing major crimes, which makes you wonder how much of this is really just France playing up the major crime element in order to tackle much lesser things that they consider a threat to their own power rather than to society.
Durov may now be on the verge of learning that despite his anti-Russian rhetoric, Russia could actually start looking not too bad by comparison the minute that his new pals decide that they’re fed up with him – and your app goes from being the toast of the Elysee to the trash bin.
...Of course there’s no actual proof that this has to do with free speech, but the Western establishment does have a nasty habit of cloaking authoritarianism in national security or serious criminality, which makes it impossible to rule out that being the case here, as well. And once the authorities get access or control under the pretext of wanting to curtail serious crime, they then have that access for absolutely everything.
Rachel Marsden:
"...Russian Pavel Durov mysteriously managed to get French citizenship in 2021 without ever even living in the country. Normally, French citizenship requires proof of five years of residency, and seemingly more importantly to French authorities, five full years of paying income tax in France. Instead, Durov managed to get fast-tracked citizenship through a French Foreign Ministry initiative that awards naturalization based on some kind of action that contributes to the image, prosperity, and international relations of France. No one has been able to actually articulate what exactly Durov has contributed to France beyond badmouthing Russia, or having created the chat app that French media have long qualified as the top choice of French President Emmanuel Macron and his entourage since at least 2016.
Just as equally puzzling is the fact that just three years later, the judicial branch of the same French government that gifted him with a highly political shortcut to citizenship is now suddenly accusing him of taking an overly laid-back approach to his platform’s content. French press reports have been citing anonymous judicial sources close to the case, alleging that the app has turned into a giant free-for-all for assorted scum of the earth (in addition the aforementioned elites): terrorists, money launderers, drug traffickers, pedophiles.
Durov was singing a tune that the West really liked for a while, about how he was pressured by the Russian government over content control and backdoor access and how he basically just flipped them off heroically. His persecution by Russia was such that he was never actually arrested or charged with anything there, and Telegram is still operational in Russia while Durov is free to go around the world promoting himself as a professional victim of his homeland. Durov even fell right in line with top-down EU demands to censor RT and other Russian media. But there has been a significant shift recently. He had started to change his tune to one that probably wasn’t such a crowd pleaser for the Western establishment, suggesting a few months ago in an interview with Tucker Carlson that the FBI tried to convince one of his engineers to basically start installing Western-friendly backdoors that would allow intelligence services easy access to encrypted Telegram content. He added that they seemed particularly interested in infiltrating groups that opposed Covid mandates and jabs.
Former Russian President Dimitry Medvedev said in the wake of Durov’s arrest that he previously warned him that he’d have problems in virtually any country where he didn’t want to cooperate with the authorities on major crimes. Not that people denouncing Covid mandates are committing major crimes, which makes you wonder how much of this is really just France playing up the major crime element in order to tackle much lesser things that they consider a threat to their own power rather than to society.
Durov may now be on the verge of learning that despite his anti-Russian rhetoric, Russia could actually start looking not too bad by comparison the minute that his new pals decide that they’re fed up with him – and your app goes from being the toast of the Elysee to the trash bin.
...Of course there’s no actual proof that this has to do with free speech, but the Western establishment does have a nasty habit of cloaking authoritarianism in national security or serious criminality, which makes it impossible to rule out that being the case here, as well. And once the authorities get access or control under the pretext of wanting to curtail serious crime, they then have that access for absolutely everything.
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