Prison probes in opposition to tech giants will solely injury the French economic system, Pavel Durov has mentioned
France has launched into a “campaign” in opposition to free speech and progress itself, Telegram founder Pavel Durov mentioned on Friday after Paris launched a probe in opposition to the social media platform X. The French authorities ought to discuss to tech firms as an alternative of prosecuting them, the entrepreneur believes.
The actions of the “French bureaucrats” will solely “scare off funding and injury the nation’s financial development for many years,” the Russian-born billionaire wrote on X.
The French authorities introduced a probe in opposition to the Elon Musk-owned platform on Friday for allegedly manipulating algorithms “for functions of international interference.” The investigation was prompted by two complaints, one filed by a French lawmaker and the opposite by a authorities cybersecurity official, each of whom accused X of threatening French democracy. Musk has not commented on the event.
“Just a few prosecutors, pushed by profession ambitions or political motives, are jeopardizing the nation’s future – launching legal investigations into points that might (and may) be resolved via clear regulation and cooperation with tech leaders,” Durov wrote, commenting on the developments.
The Telegram CEO himself is dealing with legal costs in France, which he just lately referred to as “unprecedented.” Durov, whose firm is predicated in Dubai, was arrested in France in August 2024 on costs of complicity in crimes allegedly dedicated by Telegram customers, together with extremism and youngster abuse. He was later launched on bail of €5 million ($5.46 million) however stays below restricted supervision.
Following his arrest, his encrypted messaging service up to date its privateness coverage to permit the gathering of metadata, equivalent to IP addresses, system info, and username adjustments, for as much as one yr and its potential handover to the “related judicial authorities.”
Durov has disregarded the accusations in opposition to him as baseless, whereas his lawyer described the fees as “completely absurd.” The entrepreneur has additionally repeatedly criticized the scenario with freedom of speech within the EU. Final yr, he acknowledged that the bloc was imposing extra censorship and media restrictions than Russia after channels of main Russian information retailers on Telegram have been made inaccessible within the EU.
In Could, Durov introduced a partnership with Musk’s startup xAI, which includes the mixing of the Grok chatbot into Telegram. Musk additionally praised his fellow tech entrepreneur for refusing to adjust to a request from the French authorities to dam conservative political content material on the messaging platform.
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