The Duran Podcast - Arresting Durov, taking control of Telegram

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

Arresting Durov, taking control of Telegram

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the arrest of Telegram founder and its chief executive, Pavel Durev, as his plane was landing in Paris, France, most likely for refueling, though we're not 100% sure about that. But the reports are is that the plane that he was on, the private jet, actually, that he was on was going to land in France for refueling. And as it landed in France, a warrant for his arrest was issued about five minutes before it landed. And the French authorities, they detained Pavl Durev on crimes connected to terrorism and trafficking and all kinds of other horrible nasty things that allegedly are taking place on telegram, on telegram, end of which he is.

according to France, personally responsible for. What are your thoughts on this arrest of Pavel Durev by the French authorities? Well, there's many thoughts. First of all, notice that, as I said, they've come after Pavel Durov. Now, I've been following the Russian media here. I think the thing to say about Pavel Durov is, of course, he's had his tangles with the Russian authorities as well. He doesn't actually live in Russia. He lives in Dubai, because pretty much... previously he had problems with the Russian authorities over Verkontagia, which is the Russian equivalent of Facebook, which he sorted out, and over Telegram as well. And I remember at the time when he had all of those problems with the Russian authorities, all these newspapers that, you know,

basically seemed perfectly relaxed about the fact that he's now been arrested in France. Anyway, they're all backing him, you know, the Financial Times, the Guardian, all of these places. I was reading all kinds of articles about how this is proof of the repressive nature of the Putin government and all of this. And, you know, those days he was, you know, the standard bearer, free speech and human rights and democracy in Russia. I remember that very, very well. Now, his arrest in Russia itself has been a shock. and it's also shocked specifically a lot of those young professional, supposedly liberal-minded people, some of whom left Russia to go to the West

at the time that the Special Military Operation began or who went to the West to avoid conscription. Many of the of course have gone back. But anyway, those sort of people, they tended to identify very strongly with Durov. they were supportive of him at the time when he had his own tangles with the Russian authorities. So you can imagine the shock they're all feeling now when he's been arrested, not by the Russian authorities, but by the French. So this is something in terms of, again, Russian opinion, it's a massive own goal in terms of trying to influence feeling in Russian.

Russia itself. Now, to my mind, what this probably shows is, again, this, social media that is not fully under the West's control, or at least the control of the Western political establishment, is going to come in for an awful lot of pressure. And if the chief executive is a Russian, well, he's going to be under an awful lot of even greater pressure. We saw that with TikTok, which was Chinese. We see that with Telegram, which is owned or rather was founded by a person who still has Russian citizenship, but who also has, by the way, the citizenship of the Emirates and of France, but who is not notice an American.

I think this is really what this is all about. And I think it's about control ultimately, because, yes, I'm sure all sorts of bad people use Telegram. I'm sure all sorts of bad people use all sorts of other social media channels as well. But it's doer off and previously TikTok that get targeted. Yeah, well, they want to control what's being posted on telegram. I don't think that's, that's, you know, it's. in any doubt. And when you look at telegram, it really did blow up. I mean, it was always a big app. Yeah. But it really blew up with the war in Ukraine. Yes. And I think that's freaked out

the collective West because a lot of a lot of people got the truth as to what was happening in Ukraine. To be fair, Ukraine, the Ukraine side of the conflict uses telegram. a lot, as does the pro-Russian side, as does everything in between. I mean, it really grew with the conflict in Ukraine, but a lot of the information that was being put on Telegram definitely went against the collective west narrative of the conflict in Ukraine. Absolutely. If you want to follow the war in Ukraine closely, then Telegram is an indispensable tool,

because, as you rightly say, both the Russians and the Ukraine, By the way, to an equal extent, as far as I can tell, use Telegram to post their information, you will find lots of Ukrainian material on Telegram as well as Russian, except, of course, it's not the kind of filtered material that you get, that you get, you know, in some, in the media, the mainstream media in the West, or indeed on some social media in the West. So the result is, you know, that you have the whole the whole story of the war is basically laid out there. You have, you know, all the Ukrainian channels, you have all the Russian channels, and then you have Russian and Ukrainian soldiers, actual soldiers, posting things on telegram too, very extensively so.

So what's the goal for France in all of this? So the collective... I mean, there are rumors, there are reports saying that, ultimately, this is the U.S. telling France or told France, look, the plane is going to land, it's going to refuel, grab him. That hasn't been confirmed, but let's just assume that France is going to continue to detain, do it off. Or are they definitely going to contain him for the next few days that a court has already decided that? What is their goal in all of this. I mean, is this another Assange in the making, another Assange 2.0 kind of situation?

Are they just looking to scare Dourouro and get him to start playing ball with the three-letter agencies in the deep state? What exactly are they trying to do? I think that there's a real possibility that they are going to be very serious proceedings brought against Duroff in France. By the way, you know, the United States may have had a role. But the European Union, the European Commission and the Macron government need no encouragement to do this sort of thing. If you follow the trend in France and Europe generally, you can see it very strong there. In fact, stronger than it is in the United States, where for American journalists and social media commentators and commentators of every kind, there are still the First Amendment protections. they don't exist in Europe to anything like the same degree.

So just say, but I think there's a very real chance that this could turn out into a very serious thing. Indeed, certainly the allegations that we're hearing being made about Dura, I haven't seen any indictment yet, by the way, but the stories that are being spread about what he's being accused of are very serious indeed. and it would make little legal sense, I would have thought, to release someone on bail if charges are brought, which reflect any of that. Just saying, so this is a very, very difficult and, you know, legally frightening situation. But ultimately, the objective. however this plays out is control.

It's always been about this. It's about nothing else. It's about control of the information space. And the European Union is very busy about that. Individual Western governments are very busy about that. It's happening everywhere that you can see. And it's playing out as well with this case, specifically with Do-Rov. It's interesting that.

They didn't want to control social media in Russia itself, it seems. Yeah. So I was watching Robert Barnes and Biva on their broadcast. And they brought up an interesting point. If he really did, if he really was a part of this criminal activity or was complicit in allowing this activity to take place on telegram, very serious charges that the French are alleging. The United Arab Emirates and France, many of the countries in the collective West and the UAE,

they have extradition agreements. Why would they apprehend or detain Duraev in this matter? Wouldn't they just say to the UAE, look, someone that's residing in your country, someone that holds a passport in your country is, here's the evidence. he's been, he's part of all of this terrible stuff that's going on, extradite him. And if they really did have a case, you know, the UAE would, would extradite. So doesn't this point, point to the fact that the French are effectively making all of this up on the fly? Yes, I think it's probably a, I think that's an extremely good point, actually.

if there was a legal case, if there really was a legal case against Duroff, logically, we would have, we ought to have heard about this now. There ought to have been an extradition claim, as you rightly say, against him in the UAE, waiting, luring him to France in this fashion, acting in this kind of way, strongly suggests that, you know, the claimant, the, the, the, the case against him is being made up on the fly. We'll know better when we actually see the indictment and when we see what kind of case actually is being brought against him. But that's what I suspect. That's what I think Robert Barnes and Viva Frey are absolutely right. Yeah, because he's a UAE citizen, I understand, but definitely has a French passport as well.

So that would be the, if they really had something on him, legitimately had something on him, that would be the, the, path that they would follow. But they went through this, this trouble, this plot of nabbing him on a plane that was landing in France, most likely for refueling. What do you make of the rumors? A final question, what do you make of the rumors? And these are just rumors that he was in Azerbaijan, Baku, at the same time that Putin was in Azerbaijan and that perhaps Dutov was trying to find a way back, back home, back to Lashu. I mean, that's pretty, these are rumors. Maybe this is pretty out there stuff.

But, you know, the timing lines up. Yeah. They were both in Azerbaijan at the same time. And perhaps Dutov, a very intelligent guy. No one really knows why he was flying towards France or flying in that direction. I mean, Azerbaijan and France is pretty far away. but maybe Dutov started to realize, look, when I look at the collective west where it's going

and I see everything that's happening in Russia, maybe getting back to Russia is not such a bad idea. Well, I think that's very plausible. I would say that if you did want to get back to Russia, going to Azerbaijan at the same time that Putin was there, would be a rather strange way to go about it. one would have thought that there are lots of ways that he could have contacted the Russian authorities and discussed things, you know, with a perfectly open way without, you know, arranging a trip to

Azerbaijan and coinciding it with Putin's visit to Azerbaijan. There is a possibility. And, you know, one doesn't know, because, again, we're speculating. There is a possibility that there have been discussions, that some agreement, tentative agreement, was reached, that he was indeed intending to move, to go to Russia, and that he wanted to seal the deal by meeting some Russian officials in Azerbaijan, and that they used Putin's cover, the visit, Putin's visit with,

or the many people from Putin's entourage, some kind of cover to do it, that enabled him to have a sort of private meeting with someone. But it still seems complicated to me. I would have thought they could do that some other way. As to what he was doing, where he was heading in this flight, I just don't know. I mean, one day, no doubt we will find out.

There's lots of unanswered questions here. But I can imagine that he would want to return to Russia, which, after all, is his home country where he had, you know, the social contacts and all of the friends and all of that. And, you know, his channel, his telegram channel, his business, still does have a certain, you know, Russian quality about him, even though it is an international channel. It is not actually, properly speaking, an exclusive part of the Russian social media space, not in the way that Vecontacia, the other company that he originally set up, for example, is.

So yes, I can see that, but it would be a complicated way to go about doing it. And I don't know whether it was so. One thing I would like to say, which is unrelated to this, is that to someone like me who is of a certain age, it is particularly shocking that this has happened in France because amongst all of the European countries, the country which prided itself on having the strongest free speech protections used to be France.

It goes all the way back to the French Revolution when there was this, you know, the declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen. which says, you know, the pre-speech is sacrosan. It also specifically says that anything that is not expressly prohibited is allowed. That is, you know, was very much a core part of French law. And then in the 1880s, France passed laws on freedom of expression, which were extremely strong that protected freedom of expression

to a very, very high degree. And this was what made possible, to a great extent, France's extraordinary cultural uplift in the late 19th and early 20th century. Now, over the last 30 years, this has been steadily dwindled and taken away. And once upon a time, someone like Durov would have been welcome and secure in, France and now we see that he's arrested. So I mean, this is, you know, personal comment. Some people from France who, you know, remember the old France, I think will share my distress at this. But I just wanted to make that point that this is so completely contrary to French tradition.

That much just doesn't really know where to begin. Yeah, but it's not really France. Is it? Oh, it's not really France. and then the European Commission, and most likely the United States. Exactly, exactly. Exactly. Macon is going to do as he's ordered. Well, exactly.

And of course, it's also the world where what's his end, Thierry, I can't remember his surname, writes horrible letters to... Yeah, I forgot that guy's name too. Yeah, to Elon Musk. And, yeah, and, you know, threatens him with all kinds... Tieri Breton, threat, writes to Elon Musk,

threatens him with all kinds of consequences on the eve of his interview. with Donald Trump and all of that. This is the Europe we're living today. And we see the change it's causing to places like France. But essentially this is what's at play here. I mean, what Europe wants in the DSA Act that they have, this digital security act that they've passed,

they want to be able to moderate the content on social media. They want to be able to moderate the information space. They don't even want the companies to do it. I mean, this came through, this was obvious through the revelations of the Twitter files, where it actually stated that the FBI had a corner office. I don't know if they were joking about that or if that was real. But the narrative was that at a point of time, Twitter actually had a corner office for FBI officials so that they could be at Twitter HQ actually monitoring the information that was posted on Twitter and deciding what should be allowed to be posted and what should not. And that's pretty much what the EU wants from Telegram. They want Telegram to say, okay, we'll give you guys 100 EU officials.

They'll have access to your program. Maybe they'll even sit in your offices. Who knows? But effectively, don't worry Telegram about moderating content. We'll moderate it. Yeah, absolutely. But you have to give us access. And that's what they want from tele.

That's what they want from all social media. Twitter is going to be next. Rumble, they're going to go after all social media that isn't giving them access to to moderate what content is going on these platforms. I just want to say one more thing and then we'll wrap up the video and your comments because you know this better than I do. It wouldn't be the first time that a Russian oligarch who had trouble, say, with the Russian government at a point of time, the Putin government, then left.

But after a certain amount of time, wanted to come back. I mean, we do have many cases of very wealthy Russians who fell out of favor with the Kremlin. And then over time, they started to realize, you know what, maybe it's better for me and safer for me in Russia. Anyway, your thoughts on. No, that's a lot. The last point is absolutely true. You know, they come to the West thinking that they'll be free and protected here. And they turns out that things are not quite as secure and easy for them as they expected.

and then they start contacting the Russian authorities and the Kremlin, and they tried to find a way back. Even Boris Beresovsky, who was, you know, the oligarch that the Kremlin loathed most, who ran a massive campaign against the Kremlin at one time. Even he supposedly was trying to find some way back. And before he died, he even sent a letter to Putin, a private letter apparently, which has never, the contents of which have never been disclosed. But that's absolutely correct.

Now, as for control and what the European Union is up to, you are absolutely correct. There is one important difference, in my opinion, between what was happening in the United States with Twitter and the FBI and what the European Union is trying to do. In the case of Twitter, it was all done privately. we weren't told about it. There were these contacts, but they happened just below the surface because the United States has that culture of freedom of speech

and it has the First Amendment of the Constitution and all of that. What the European Union wants to do is do this completely openly. They believe in regulation and they're quite open about it. They are not in any way embarrassed by the fact that they're pursuing it and they're going to pursue it.

And of course they say, you know, we want to do this in order to protect democracy. That's what they say that, you know, they know what democracy is. All of these bad actors are out to dismantle it. And therefore, we have to control them and control their platforms and control all platforms and make sure that only, things that benefit and support democracy, which is what, of course, the European Union is all about, only that kind of material is published. It's an astonishing view of how democracy works. I mean, I would say it turns it completely on its head. But, you know, give these people credit.

They're not, they're not shy about what they're trying to do. They're not embarrassed about it at all, they're quite open about what it is that they're trying to do. And of course, if arresting a Russian businessman, because as far as they're concerned, Dirov, he might have have French citizenship, he might have Emirati citizenship, as far as they're concerned, he's Russian. Arrising a Russian businessman is the way to move forward with that agenda. Well, you know, that's not something again that they're in the slightest bit concerned or embarrassed about. Yeah, but a final question. is the EU has this digital services thing, the digital services act that this guy, Terry

Brendan, came up with. Why not just ban Telegram if you don't like it? If you're the EU, I mean, you've banned other sites and other platforms. France is banned the Rumble. Actually, Rumble isn't coming up in France. You've banned all of Russian media throughout all the EU. I mean, there's a precedent. The European Union bans content. It censors content. There's a there. They've done it. They've done it in the past. They'll do it going forward in the future throughout the entire EU. Why arrest the guy? Are they trying to scare people? They try to make an example. Why not just say, if you're Ursula, why not just say, look, Telegram is not playing ball with our DSA act. Throughout the entire EU now, access to Telegram is switched off.

Because Telegram is also read in Russia. And a lot of the program, that a lot of the channels that it has are accessible in Russia. So if you are able to bring telegram into line and moderate content that is read in Russia, then that might be to your benefit. I'm sure this is the thinking. Otherwise, they would do exactly what you say. True. All right.

We will end the video there. The durand. Dot locals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, Bitchie Telegram, Rock Finn. and Twitter X and go to the Duran Shop pick up t-shirts like the ones we are wearing today. You will find a link for the Merch of Dijad Shop in the description box down below. Take care.