How Telegram's lack of content moderation made it hub of illegal activities and led to CEO Pavel Durov's arrest
French authorities have said that Pavel Durov, the founder and CEO of the messaging app?Telegram, was arrested in Paris over the weekend over allegations that his platform is being used for illicit activity including drug trafficking and the distribution of child sexual abuse images.
Allegations against?Pavel Durov
According to the French authorities, he was taken into custody at Paris-Le Bourget Airport in France as part of an ongoing investigation that was launched on July 8.
Durov is accused of involving in 12 alleged criminal violations, including complicity in selling child sexual abuse material and in drug trafficking, fraud, abetting organized crime transactions and refusing to share information or documents with investigators when required by law.
How Telegram allowed itself to be misused
At the center of the controversy is Telegram's content moderation, or the lack of it. Telegram is an instant messaging app like WhatsApp and Signal, but unlike others, allow users to reach a much larger audience. Telegram has a feature called Telegram Channels, which are similar to social media pages, where admins can send messages that will reach everyone who follows them on the platform. Telegram's group chats also allow as many as 200,000 people, making it ideal for reaching out to a large audience.
A hub for everything illegal?
Like its predecessor, VK, Telegram has a very relaxed policy when it comes to content moderation, allowing it to be exploited by unscrupulous elements. Telegram has regularly come under scrutiny across the world for sharing extremist propaganda and material linked to the sexual exploitation of minors, including an infamous incident in Kerala in 2017.
What Telegram's terms of service say
This is despite the fact that Telegram's terms of service say that it cannot be used to
- Send spam or scam users.
- Promote violence on publicly viewable Telegram channels, bots, etc.
- Post illegal pornographic content on publicly viewable Telegram channels, bots, etc., distribute or promote child sexual abuse materials.
- Spread harmful misinformation (including harmful deepfake images or videos).Violate copyright and intellectual property rights
How Telegram says it is moderating content
According to Telegram, to counter abuse of the platform, they employ a combination of AI-driven and manual moderation for public content, together with processing user reports.
However, these are hardly ever enforced and one can easily find channels dealing in explicit content, pirated movies, software, drugs and more, with a simple search.
Is Telegram end-to-end encrypted? Not really?
In the past, Telegram has said that it is difficult to crack down on such content on the platform as the chats are end-to-end encrypted. But many cybersecurity analysts have pointed out that end-to-end encryption is not turned on by default and every user has to turn it on for their chats. Additionally, group chats are not end-to-end encrypted, which means that, contrary to Telegram's claims, they can access the messages.
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