Less than six months ago, billionaire Telegram owner Pavel Durov was boasting to the Financial Times that the messaging app was generating “hundreds of millions of dollars” in revenue, that it was valued at up to $30 billion (€27 billion) by potential investors and that an initial public offering (IPO) was being explored.
An IPO presumably isn’t in the works now, following the arrest of Durov in Paris amid allegations of “complicity” in the distribution of child sexual abuse material and other illegal activity.
Defenders of Durov, who include Elon Musk, complain about freedom of speech and authoritarian overreach. Telegram itself says it is “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform”.
Many would query whether there is anything “absurd” about it.
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Expenses for each monthly user are less than 70 US cents, Durov told the FT last March. The same article noted that Telegram, which has some 900 million users, had about 50 full-time employees. Is that good enough?
In relation to illegal content, Telegram’s FAQ page says “all Telegram chats and group chats are private among their participants” and that “we do not process any requests related to them”. It is not a message likely to spook those inclined to post illegal content, whether that be child sexual abuse material, terrorism or videos of Ukrainian soldiers being tortured.
Durov’s arrest raises questions about the responsibility of tech giants to police illegal content. Regulators are entitled to ask serious questions.
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