Conversation

France's President Macron gave me a chuckle today. He's claiming that the arrest of the founder of Telegram (Pavel Durov) isn't political. He was arrested on a stop over in France for his company "violating" France's laws that are OUTSIDE of France's jurisdiction. His company doesn't operate in France yet France is trying to hold him as the founder/CEO of Telegram responsible for the actions of a few Telegram users.

If Pavel Durev is held responsible for others actions for the mere production of a tool then the internet ceases to function. The argument against Pavel Durev could just as easily be made against the creators of any operating system, web browser, or other application with internet connectivity since any tool capable of communicating messages on a users behalf is "allowing" crime by way of "not doing enough".

The reason we have section 230 in the United States is to protect platforms from being held liable for the actions of their users since it's not possible to ensure users privacy, security, and the functioning of the internet without this liability protection measure.

If one can be held liable for others actions for which the platform has no reasonable or effective ability control without significant collateral damage then no one would produce such a tool and the internet would cease to exist. Neither ISPs, operating system vendors, computer dealers, electronics manufacturers, application developers, etc would survive. Bankruptcy or imprisonment would result and no one would then produce said tools or offer such services/platforms.

If allowing posts on Telegram is a crime then shouldn't France be arresting the post master general for failing to catch or monitor all packages containing illegal speech too?