00:00.00
Henry
Hey everyone, it's Henry Mike and Jeff of the decentralized and we've got a new hot topics for you today interestingly titled Russia's Zuckerberg 

00:20.75
Henry
We're actually talking about Pavel Durov. Pavel Durov is a Russian business executive and entrepreneur. He's the the the CEO of the messaging service Telegram since 2013.

00:35.25
Henry
For those that may not know, Telegram is essentially the WhatsApp of Eastern Europe, and it is huge, wildly popular. Now, years ago, 2006, he and his brother ah founded and created the Russian version of Facebook. Of course, it's a knockoff, but again, wildly successful. However, eventually he had conflicts with the owners and of course the Russian authorities as usual, so he left.

01:01.09
Henry
And he became a citizen of the Caribbean nation St. Kitts and Nevis. Now, he's all about internet freedom and he criticizes anybody, any country, any establishment that tries to restrict it.

01:13.95
Henry
ah He eventually moved to the United Arab arama Emirates and he lives in Dubai and that of course is where Telegram is headquartered and it's been successful so so far and ever since. ah However, in the last several years he's held citizenship in four countries, Russia, St. Kitts and Nevis,

01:32.41
Henry
United Arab Emirates and France. Now, that's the big one. France, that's a modern sophisticated working democracy, right? Well, Guy's worth over $15 billion. dollars And of course, that's largely driven by by Telegram. But in August of 2024, he was arrested on criminal charges ah relating to the alleged lack of content moderation on Telegram, and of course, his refusal to work with police.

02:02.86
Henry
because that kind of thing allows the spread of criminal activity. And to this day, Durov remains in custody in France. So, very interesting stuff here.

02:16.18
Henry
ah Mike, I'm going to let you let you kick it off.

02:18.85
Mike
Thank you, Henry.

02:19.16
Henry
um And before we get into, you know, why exactly he was ah incarcerated and everything else, ah explain to us telegram, why is it so popular in Eastern Europe?

02:33.66
Henry
And ah by its very nature, is there something that led it to be a little bit more um sort of out there, and therefore attracted ah the authorities?

02:33.95
Mike
Right.

02:43.26
Mike
right

02:46.48
Henry
Over to you, Mike.

02:46.60
Mike
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, okay. So, so when, when we, with the title, you know, Russia's Zuckerberg, he really pabbled her of really is, um, you know, him and his brother founded V contact it's called, which was the Russian version of Facebook.

03:04.36
Mike
Um, and as the, oh, let's say the, you know, the story goes and you can, you know, you can argue whether it's true or not, although I've read it and heard it from a bunch of different places. Uh, you know, V contact is, is, so maybe let me step back a bit. First Russia is their internet is kinda like China's.

03:27.17
Mike
So we've talked before about the you know the the the the great wall of China, the internet wall, right?

03:32.36
Henry
Yeah, it's a closed internet, right?

03:34.47
Mike
It's a closed internet. And so Russia's the same. So basically, although although I think Russia's a little bit different in that you might be able to still say access Google or something, although I think that changed a couple of years ago.

03:46.97
Mike
But the reality was is what these two countries did is they basically kind of banned the American versions of stuff.

03:47.17
Henry
Yeah.

03:56.76
Mike
So they said, no, you can't have WhatsApp. No, you can't have ah Facebook. No, you can't have eBay or PayPal and all these things.

04:05.14
Henry
Twitter.

04:05.55
Mike
And they yeah, exactly. And they just created their own versions.

04:09.37
Henry
Of course, that's what the Russians do.

04:09.52
Mike
right so this and and And the Chinese did too, right with Weibo and all of these other things.

04:10.69
Henry
They copy.

04:16.03
Mike
right so the So the idea is, Durand sets up this Facebook in Russia, it's called V-Contact, and him and his brother set it up. And then a couple years later, when all of a sudden you know the Russian authorities realized that this is a great trove of information on Russian people.

04:31.33
Henry
Surveillance.

04:31.20
Mike
Right? Yeah. So the idea is apparently what happened was, or the story goes is that he and his, he and his brother basically were invited for dinner at some fancy Russian, some fancy restaurant in Moscow.

04:45.43
Mike
And, you know, ah sitting across the table is some guy with two huge thugs behind him. And he slides a piece of paper across and says, you're selling your company to me for a hundred million, or you're not leaving this restaurant.

04:58.69
Henry
Oh, is this is this ah that's essentially Russian government operatives?

04:59.37
Mike
That type of thing.

05:03.12
Mike
government operatives, gangsters, same thing.

05:04.83
Henry
Of course. There you go.

05:06.61
Mike
um And yeah, and so he leaves, right?

05:06.82
Henry
That's Putin.

05:09.63
Mike
And he starts basically like Zuckerberg. He didn't buy WhatsApp. He started a Russian version of WhatsApp. And and so you know the first reason why it's popular is that it was kind of the first encrypted messaging service in kind of this Russian speaking area of the world.

05:32.86
Henry
Okay. So hold on. So for listeners, what you mean is if a, let's say you and I are using it, if I text something to you, it's encrypted from my device to your device and then you decrypt it, you can read it. And then your response is encrypted from your device to my device. So no one can intercept it.

05:51.89
Geoff
yes and no guys

05:52.72
Mike
No, exactly. Jeff was just going to jump in and say the same thing I was going to say.

05:54.81
Geoff
so

05:57.27
Geoff
so You know, we can spend hours talking about Zuckerberg and WhatsApp and and we have, ah but a messaging platform like WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted.

06:08.55
Geoff
So I write you, you know, when we set up these podcasts, we you know we chat a little bit on WhatsApp ahead of time, and what I send to you guys and you send to me is encrypted end-to-end.

06:16.43
Henry
Yeah, of course.

06:22.46
Geoff
So yes, it passes through a centralized server um But it's just gibberish as it passes through the centralized server. And to do that is quite difficult and complicated. And we're not going to go into a whole lecture of private keys and public keys and all that stuff back and forth. But basically, if I send something to you that's encrypted all the way, you need to have the key at the other end to decrypt it.

06:48.41
Geoff
and and And the technology required to do that uses a lot of compute, and it's complicated and difficult. So Telegram, I write something on my phone or my computer.

06:56.81
Henry
Yeah.

07:01.54
Geoff
I send it to the server. It's on the server decrypted. And then the server encrypts it again and then sends it out. So it's not end-to-end encrypted unless you turn that feature on by ah there's a setting buried that will let you turn that feature on.

07:15.53
Henry
Oh, okay.

07:18.25
Geoff
but they don't promote it because if they're, and I think they're up to like a billion users, if their billion users were all end-to-end encrypting by default, it would bring the service to its knees.

07:31.56
Henry
Oh.

07:31.86
Geoff
so um so it's not unlike Unlike other platforms, the most famous of which is WhatsApp, it's not end-to-end encrypted. Sorry to interrupt, Mike, but that's ah that's an important distinction, Henry.

07:44.05
Henry
so but but but Okay, so the point is, Mike, does that mean that if it's not quite encrypted on their server, they could take whatever they want?

07:53.37
Mike
Oh For sure they do already um No, no, it's okay. So there's a couple of important things. So first Jeff is right that there is a setting but there's a subtlety it's per message per conversation

08:07.73
Henry
You're kidding, so you have to keep toggling it?

08:08.92
Mike
You, you literally, if you, if I start talking to you Henry, I have to toggle the encryption on, then it's encrypted. Then if I start talking to Jeff, I have to toggle the encryption on, and then it's encrypted if I don't toggle it per per session. It's not on.

08:25.10
Henry
So, okay, fair enough, but if so if if so if you start another session with Jeff tomorrow, would you have to toggle it?

08:25.48
Mike
um

08:31.84
Mike
Yes. Yes.

08:33.06
Henry
No.

08:33.78
Mike
And so, but, but this isn't, you know, so this is, this is crazy. And there's, there's actually an article and I may find it and add it in the link to the, yeah as a link in this, in the writeup when we, when we publish this, but, um, so telegram like WhatsApp, right?

08:48.07
Mike
When WhatsApp was purchased by Facebook, it was like something crazy, like $50 billion dollars or something like this. And, or 15 billion or something. And there were 38 employees. and And Telegram is exactly the same. There's like 30 or 40 people that work at Telegram in Dubai. And this this are i this was in like Forbes or one of these reputable magazines. They all have access to every message.

09:15.47
Henry
Oh my goodness.

09:15.53
Mike
And so, yeah, yeah absolutely. and so the but the But that's not the main reason why telegram is super popular. So the reason why telegram is super popular and why people find it really hard to, even in Ukraine, right, which is at war with Russia, and this is Russian tech, um they find it hard to leave because, and this is where this transitions into why Durov was arrested.

09:34.30
Henry
Yeah.

09:41.03
Mike
is that unlike WhatsApp, Telegram has a group function, ah big a broadcast group function. So on WhatsApp, you you connect one to one with people and you can create a little group like you and I and and Jeff have to talk about the DeSantis.

09:55.72
Henry
And we have yeah.

09:57.90
Mike
On Telegram, you can create a group called You Can Buy Weed Here. And anybody on Telegram can join it. There's like groups with hundreds of thousands of people in it.

10:09.66
Mike
So it functions kind of, it's in this weird gray area between a messenger and a social media platform.

10:16.08
Henry
Oh.

10:16.85
Mike
And so what's happening is, is that you have people on Telegram who are creating groups that are intended to spread child porn, um um sell illegal drugs,

10:30.80
Henry
Oh. OK, OK, I get it.

10:34.14
Mike
um You know order a hit buy a gun, you know, all of these things like you literally can and and Absolutely

10:41.98
Geoff
It was literally the primary communication platform for ISIS. So when ISIS was was creating it you know its terror attacks and and you know and they've kind of receded a little bit in the news, but they're they were still very active.

10:47.76
Henry
Oh.

10:57.59
Geoff
But during their peak, ah Telegram was their primary communications platform to just spread terror and murder people and and everything ISIS was doing.

11:07.22
Henry
OK. OK, so essentially, you've you've answered one of my next questions. And that was, um is Telegram truly a secure platform? And the answer is no. OK.

11:22.76
Geoff
Well, yes and no, Henry. this is this is and And this is probably you know what Mike is going to come to in terms of what happened him in Paris. So it was not end to end encrypted by default, but the telegram leadership

11:35.07
Henry
No, no.

11:40.38
Geoff
of which there was largely one person that we're talking about here, he basically made it clear that he was not going to work with law enforcement with form you know with other governments and so on.

11:51.68
Geoff
So people started using it for very nefarious things and found out that even though it was perhaps not end-to-end encrypted necessarily, um they were safe because unlike

11:54.74
Henry
Yeah.

12:03.92
Geoff
Facebook Messenger or iMessage or other platforms, they wouldn't respond to warrants. They wouldn't respond to police inquiries. they you know They'd either be silent or steal a page from Elon's book and reply with a poop emoji.

12:14.57
Henry
Yeah.

12:19.94
Geoff
so there wasn't any yeah yeah so So over time, You know, when they pushed these cru criminals would push the edges more and more and more, ah they would discover that there was no consequence.

12:30.34
Henry
Yeah.

12:34.29
Henry
Okay, so...

12:34.51
Geoff
so So they kind of became, they became more comfortable using it.

12:40.67
Henry
So, Mikey became a French citizen, and that may have been a big mistake, right?

12:45.81
Mike
Mm hmm.

12:47.31
Henry
Okay, because...

12:48.14
Mike
Yeah, I mean, he was he was, you know, I mean, he's a billionaire.

12:52.43
Henry
Okay.

12:52.49
Mike
Right. And and and, um you know, um it's one of these things where, you know, you have this this kind of, I think it was Macron was trying to, you know, do some kind of French government initiative to create France, France as an innovation center, blah, blah, blah.

13:13.12
Mike
And he needed people like You know, I mean, he probably would have preferred a bunch of Silicon Valley tech bros.

13:20.17
Henry
yeah yeah

13:20.56
Mike
Um, but he needed people who were, you know, acknowledged visible humans in the tech world to kind of come and say, okay, I'm going to set up a, you know, incubator or I'm going to do some investing or I'll put my venture fund in Paris or whatever it was.

13:38.55
Mike
And he offered him citizenship. He said, look, if you if you come here and you kind of help you know the French government build a tech ecosystem, I'll give you a passport.

13:50.06
Henry
Really?

13:51.22
Mike
Yeah, and Macron's like, you know, and they were, they were, they were grilling them on it. And he's like, uh, and allegedly Durov steps off his plane on what, August 24th or something weird like this. He, he lands at this airport, this, that's in the middle of Paris, right? So it's on the most expensive real estate in the world. And this guy lands his private jet, gets off the plane.

14:12.11
Mike
And the the the kind of the like border guards, cops, whatever, are like, we're arresting you. And he's like, you see that black limo over there? That's they waiting to take me to dinner with the Macron.

14:24.47
Geoff
And France is, several European nations have um somewhat ah sort of convoluted legacy paths to citizenship.

14:25.05
Mike
you know

14:35.52
Geoff
So when Great Britain left the EU, ah many British people started acquiring Irish citizenship through a long dead ancestor who had Irish lineage and other nations have

14:44.87
Henry
Right.

14:52.97
Geoff
you know interesting ah path to citizenship. And France has a path to citizenship around if you've basically contributed in a meaningful way to the greatness of France, to put it in you know slightly ludicrous terms, then then that is a path to citizenship.

15:09.69
Mike
or if you like croissants.

15:10.08
Geoff
and yeah and so you know And so this was the mechanism by which he attained his French citizenship was

15:18.27
Henry
Well, so do you think, are you saying, Jeff that um and Mike, that they they lured him specifically to arrest him?

15:28.18
Mike
No, not at all.

15:29.86
Henry
Okay.

15:29.82
Mike
No, not at all. He just, they just gave him citizenship. And I'm guessing, um you know I mean, I'm guessing he didn't expect anything to happen. Right. I mean, when you're, when you're a 15 billionaire and you're flying around on a cedar lined freaking private Gulf stream or whatever it is and, and all this other kind of stuff, you don't expect anything to happen to you.

15:51.30
Henry
No, of course not.

15:51.46
Mike
Right. You're not, you're not, you're not stopping at the border and lined up behind a bunch of people and all this other kind of stuff. Like you don't expect anything to happen. And and his girlfriend apparently likes Paris.

15:58.10
Henry
so So law enforcement in France decided to, okay, so they just, well, and who wouldn't, right?

16:01.23
Mike
Big surprise.

16:03.01
Henry
So law enforcement decided that there's a guy that we need to arrest because he is not responding to all of our inquiries and other nations' inquiries, is that right?

16:12.86
Geoff
In simple terms, yes. In in more complex terms, there's there's a bigger picture there's a bigger picture at play here, which is in the last decade, there has been this groundswell of upset, particularly among voters, about issues around bad behavior on social media platforms, teenage girls that are you know, becoming suicidal based on the number of likes they have on Instagram and, you know, Facebook over, you know, helping to overthrow the government in Myanmar and

16:40.52
Henry
Well of course, yeah.

16:48.28
Geoff
you know, everything they did in the, in the you know, they're responsible for in the in the previous elections and, you know, child sexual abuse material and, you know, just just all of this kind of bad stuff that's been online and and ah people have been clamoring for laws to rein these guys in.

17:09.36
Henry
Of course we all want that.

17:10.20
Geoff
and And yeah, we've talked about that quite a bit. And the US government, you know the United States biggest economy in the world, developer of all this stuff, the US government that in in Washington DC is largely impotent in this area because of campaign finance and donations and and and calcified polarization and a dozen other reasons where they are largely incapable of of passing these laws.

17:13.90
Mike
Mm hmm.

17:31.06
Henry
Yeah. Right.

17:40.22
Geoff
But you know there's some exceptions at the state level. Some states are trying to get involved. But of course, you know when you have a global internet company, a law that Utah passes is it only has so many so many teeth.

17:50.76
Henry
meaningless.

17:52.89
Geoff
um So because the US hasn't really done much, um Europe has stepped up. And Europe, over the past number of years, has been passing more and more laws basically determining how these providers have to behave.

18:08.90
Henry
Good.

18:09.04
Geoff
And the thing that was probably most visible to us is, you know, eight years ago we started seeing on every webpage we saw, I do you accept cookies, some cookies, no cookies.

18:19.06
Henry
Yeah.

18:19.92
Geoff
You know, ah that is a direct consequence of laws that passed in Europe where websites said, well, rather than just ask people in Europe about cookies, I'll just ask everybody about cookies. And it's become kind of pointless because everyone just clicks okay now and carries on, but it it is,

18:36.11
Geoff
You know, that's an example. And so they've also passed laws in Europe about, you know, how these social air quotes, social media sites are supposed to behave. And ah and, you know, Pavel basically just thumbed his nose at those.

18:53.68
Henry
Ah.

18:54.33
Geoff
And so once his plane touched down in Paris, um yeah and and in the US s the approach is we will you know will we'll pay a billion dollars in fines because we can find that down the back of the couch and and then we'll carry on. And Europe's come to the realization that the only way to affect change is to actually you know have a perp walk.

19:19.35
Henry
Right.

19:19.44
Geoff
And so they you know they put peace they put teeth behind their laws and and actually arrested this guy.

19:20.89
Mike
Right.

19:27.13
Geoff
both as you know both as a you know First of all, because he actually broke the law, but second of all, as kind of a message, right to say, look, we mean this.

19:27.10
Henry
Well, good for them.

19:38.73
Geoff
And you can bet that you know Elon Musk, owner of Twitter, is going to think twice about stepping off his Gulf Stream in Belgium now, or yeah because they're EU laws they across the continent, right?

19:51.01
Henry
Yeah.

19:51.81
Geoff
um Because theyre France is demonstrating that you know that they have some teeth and that if you were going to operate this platform that has all of this bad stuff going on, it and when we um reach out to you, you just say, screw you.

20:09.75
Geoff
um They say, OK, well, we'll say screw you back. And and none of the other sites, WhatsApp, um yeah you know, Facebook, even Signal, they they at least make a token attempt, right?

20:24.18
Geoff
The FBI goes to Signal, which is another secure messaging app we've talked about in the back before.

20:24.31
Henry
Yes.

20:29.52
Geoff
It too may be compromised. You can hear us talk about that in the archives. But ah you know in a but But they basically make an attempt, right? They say, we don't have much, but here's what we have.

20:41.67
Geoff
And it might just be an IP address, or it might just be gibberish. Whereas they know that telegram stuff in Telegram's servers is not encrypted, but Telegram says, nah.

20:54.37
Geoff
And so here's your you know here's your first perp walk.

20:54.40
Henry
That is fascinating. Okay, so Mike, um and especially, ah Mike, considering that you've lived in Kiev for the last two years, um the the the Ukrainian government recently announced that their banning telegram, like i'm so I'm surprised they actually use it, um ah for use between government officials.

21:17.44
Henry
Can can you can you speak to that?

21:17.71
Mike
yeah Yeah, so, um you know, it's it's one of these weird kind of things, right? Like, um you know, everybody here, all, basically all of the Ukrainians, kind of like, you know, in the States, if you have a secure messenger, you're probably on WhatsApp.

21:38.19
Mike
right Like that's what you use. And, um you know, because if you're going to text somebody, why use FaceTime? Because it's not encrypted, you might as well use WhatsApp, you know, that type of thing. um And here, everybody's on Telegram. And so, you know, I'll be out, I'll be out, you know, wandering around and meet somebody and they're like, oh, you on Telegram? I'm like, hell no, it's Russian.

21:59.46
Mike
Like, what's the matter with you guys?

21:59.76
Henry
okay

22:01.66
Mike
You know, and and they're like, well, everybody's on it. You know, we've talked about this before in past episodes, right? I mean, oh, I can't switch because everybody's on it. It's like, okay.

22:09.09
Henry
Yep.

22:10.86
Mike
You know, just because everybody else is sticking their head and in in the guillotine doesn't mean you have to. Right.

22:16.78
Henry
Yeah.

22:17.24
Mike
And and so, so there was there, there's this, um, you know, let's let's just say, you know, kind of ah emotional thing. So for me, I'm like, no, I'm not on it. Are you on WhatsApp? And some of them will be like begrudgingly, yes, I am, or, you know, whatever it is, or oddly enough, they'll be like, how about Instagram, which is completely open and unencrypted, right? um But, you know, it it's it's one of these things where, you know, I'm like, why can why are you guys using Russian tech? So I think that, i think that

22:48.50
Mike
um First, it is it always struck me as very strange you know that that the biggest kind of audience for say Zelensky's personal account when he wants to go and you know do his nightly address that he does every night or whatever it is, he does it on Telegram.

23:07.40
Henry
Yeah, that's odd.

23:08.98
Mike
And I'm like, you know it's it's a Russian application owned and operated by Russians And he's doing his thing and that's just you know simply because you know the 44 million Ukrainians that have an app on their phone to communicate are on telegram.

23:21.74
Henry
Yeah. The audience is there. He knows that.

23:28.27
Mike
And this is relates back to my previous point about the group thing, right? Because Zelensky can have a group called you know United 24 or Zelensky Speaks or whatever it is that has 44 million people in it, it's just easier.

23:43.69
Henry
Yeah, no, I get it.

23:43.66
Mike
so what it ended up So what ended up happening is the government just announced a couple of weeks ago, they said, we're not allowing our kind of government employees to use Telegram to communicate with each other, which, you know, at the end of the day, kind of makes sense, right?

24:00.28
Mike
Like, ah you don't want the, you know, ah the the chief of the Air Force, you know, sending Telegram messages, which are unencrypted on a server in the Emirates that's owned by Russians.

24:06.01
Henry
Yeah, no, of course. Yeah.

24:13.37
Mike
and saying, here's where to send the troops, or here's where to send the airplanes, or whatever the case may be, right? And so they they said, we're not doing it for that. Now they didn't ban it for everything else, right?

24:25.75
Mike
They didn't ban, like Zelensky does his stuff on Telegram, but they banned it just for the fact that, you know, it doesn't matter what you're talking about.

24:26.86
Henry
yet.

24:34.28
Mike
You can't make veiled references to the the cargo train is arriving on this track at this station at this time, and now you know where to send the Shahads.

24:43.98
Henry
yeah

24:44.97
Mike
So, so this is what they've done and I mean you got to you got to give it to them for finally figuring that out after two years. um But, you know, this is this is one of the things that, um you know, this intractability of kind of community.

25:00.22
Mike
is one of the problems. And this is, I think, what makes Telegram especially addictive and especially problematic is that is that you have you can create you can create some content, you can create a group, and you can have 40 million people looking at it.

25:09.41
Henry
Well, yeah,

25:18.31
Mike
That doesn't happen on WhatsApp. right So that's what it's all about.

25:21.06
Henry
yeah, you see.

25:23.64
Henry
And that's and that's the that's the sinister power of almost all social media apps. It's so hard to get off it because it's so seductive. Now, ah Jeff, well, exactly, the whole audience is there.

25:32.60
Mike
Well, or it's just where where everybody's, where you're connected to everybody. Nobody wants that.

25:36.48
Henry
How can I leave them?

25:36.41
Mike
you know why do you use Why do you use social media or a messenger, right?

25:37.75
Henry
you know

25:40.20
Mike
I mean, let's remember what it originally was, right? That kind of, you think of the early genius, it was photo sharing.

25:42.87
Henry
Yep.

25:45.20
Mike
You know, you said, well, you know, I used to go on vacation. I would take my pictures. I would put them in an email and I would have to type 50 email addresses.

25:51.04
Henry
Oh, that's such a pain.

25:52.48
Mike
You know what I mean? And send an email. So just post them somewhere. So this is this is kind of the genius of this thing where now all of a sudden you say, oh, it's just too convenient for me to just click a button, send a picture and have 5,000 people get it.

25:56.25
Henry
Yeah.

26:02.65
Henry
Convenienced.

26:06.29
Henry
Okay, so. Jeff, over to you, and then I want to hear from Mike, and this will probably ah wrap it up for today, but what do you think happens next for Pavel Durov? We know he's incarcerated in um in France. ah Jeff, what happens next?

26:24.07
Geoff
Well, what happens next is a trial, presumably, uh, I assume he's, you know, he's hired, he's hired the best lawyers and there will be sooner or later there's a trial or, you know, a plea deal.

26:36.87
Geoff
I'll go and, uh, where do they send Napoleon? You know, I'll go live on this Island and, and, uh, and.

26:41.69
Henry
Alba.

26:43.32
Geoff
And I'll sort of I'll live out my days there. And meanwhile, Telegram will will sort of continue on. But there will be there will be these larger questions that are all tangled around this that have been tangled around for 30 years, which is when you provide a platform that delivers content to people, what are your you know, what are your

27:13.97
Henry
Responsibilities.

27:14.81
Geoff
responsibilities, what is your yeah what what what's your responsibility in operating that? If I put up a cork board at the library and you can put up a sign that says that you're advertising piano lessons and someone sticks this notice on there that says, call me if you want to buy weed, what is the response is that the library's responsibility to go around and tear those signs down? Or you know can they be charged with having supported this cork board that was helping to foster criminal activity?

27:47.00
Geoff
and and and and so these These questions remain unanswered. and the kind of uneasy The kind of uneasy truce that seems to have come in place is is these platforms saying, and and even Twitter has kind of grudgingly agreed to this to some degree, is to, and I apologize to the Twitter fanboys, I just can't say X, I know I'm supposed to say X, but I just keep saying Twitter, is they you know is they so they can basically say, we made an effort.

28:17.31
Henry
Mhmm.

28:25.00
Geoff
here's what we have, here's what we had, we'll respond to this. And and and if you look at the big organizations um like Pinterest, like TikTok, they actually have entire teams called Trust and Safety that are taking this stuff down and banning accounts and actually working to clean the place up as as best they can. So you have,

28:51.01
Geoff
You have in the short term this trial, but you have in this long term, and I don't speak French. I haven't read the French constitution. I don't you know know what the i don't know what the rules are and whether you whether a trial in this turns into a ah constitutional discussion about freedom of speech and about the what what these platforms are are required to do, but it is you know that That is sort of what is going to come up in this trial and that is what's going to cause these platforms to start taking a second look. and You may eventually find situations where these these platforms will say,

29:31.12
Geoff
It's more trouble than it's worth to operate in those nation this nation, so I'm going to just not participate any anymore.

29:37.98
Henry
yeah

29:38.13
Geoff
The most recent example was Twitter's brief briefly pulled out of Brazil because they Brazil said, you've got to comply with these laws.

29:39.13
Mike
Right.

29:46.50
Geoff
They said, no, I don't want to. um Brazil said, you have. and and so Instead of complying, they just said, fine, we're going to take our ball and go home and and not and not i you know not participate.

29:58.89
Geoff
If you try to post a link to a news story, if you're in Canada and you try to post a link on Facebook to a news story about the war in Ukraine or ah or a news story about a lost puppy, Facebook won't let you post that because of Canadian laws that say, hey, if you're going to post Canadian news, you have to pay those news providers.

30:00.59
Henry
Yeah. Mhm.

30:18.54
Geoff
And Facebook said, no, do we just won't let you do that in Canada anymore. So that

30:22.70
Henry
Right.

30:24.64
Geoff
You know that may be the um You know firmly in the category of be careful what you wish for that may be the consequence at at the end of this so the reason this has garnered so much interest as opposed to you know, it's probably Business people that are arrested in France every day But the reason this one has garnered so much interest is it's all tangled up with these you know freedom of speech absolutists, ah people who are who who who want to talk about you know the purity of the internet and being able to, you know if you want to sell machine guns, then I have a right to do that as as freedom of speech.

30:52.54
Henry
Oh, yeah.

31:05.01
Geoff
But as one as one internet commentator said recently that I quite liked, crime is not freedom of speech. and And so, yeah, it'll be interesting to see where you know where this trial goes.

31:13.93
Henry
Yeah.

31:14.09
Mike
percent

31:17.92
Henry
Cool. ah Mike, ah what do you think for for Pavel?

31:23.01
Mike
um Well, I mean, I think that, um you know, the the personally, I think that what you'll end up seeing, if he wants to get out of jail, ah Telegram will drop the group function.

31:39.64
Henry
Ah.

31:39.91
Mike
Telegram will just cut it out and go to a WhatsApp. They'll just go to a straight one-to-one messaging, right? If I know your phone number, Henry, and I want to you know hook up with you on WhatsApp and plot a terrorist thing or buy drugs, I can do that. And it's encrypted, and it's fine. But if I want to you know open up a shop, basically advertising that I'm selling guns or drugs, I can't do that.

32:11.69
Henry
Okay.

32:12.17
Mike
So that's the genus of what what telegram's getting hammered for, is that they know that there is criminal activity, because to Jeff's point, it's all unencrypted, right? So every time you go on their servers, ah you know and which are, by the way, in the UAE, which is if you all go back in Canadiana, it was the UAE that basically, in effect, killed Blackberry.

32:38.12
Mike
because it was in the UAE where Blackberry Messenger, which to this day was still the most secured messaging platform on the planet, they went to the UAE and the UAE said, if you want to sell your Blackberry devices in the UAE, you have to give us the encryption key.

32:51.47
Henry
That's right.

32:52.10
Mike
And Blackberry was like, no, no, no, no. And then they said, okay. And that was it, right? Because you know where are most of the Russians that can afford to get out of Russia in the UAE?

32:57.77
Henry
Yeah.

33:05.10
Henry
Okay.

33:05.56
Mike
Okay. So I think that what ends up happening is you'll see if Durand, you know, kind of sticks to his guns and I'm going to be internet freedom and I'm going to do all this, they'll just add them to the sanctions list.

33:20.36
Mike
They'll say, you're Russian.

33:20.62
Henry
Oh, what do you mean?

33:22.13
Mike
They'll say, they'll say you're Russian. um Your technology is being used you know kind of for criminal purposes. and they'll you know And I'm sure they won't have any problem finding a way to tie it to the war in Ukraine.

33:36.47
Henry
Yes.

33:36.85
Mike
And they will just add him to the sanctions list. And now his luxury jet is impounded and he ain't going anywhere. He's taking a bus home in France.

33:43.57
Henry
you In other words, in US and Europe, essentially.

33:45.65
Mike
Well, anywhere, right? I mean, anywhere where the where they will do this, right? So he'll be just like any other Russian, which is fine for him. He lives in the UAE anyway, but he's not going to Paris anymore to buy baguettes for his girlfriend.

33:53.86
Henry
He's... Yes, he's like an and oligarch.

33:57.17
Mike
I think that if he, yeah, and I think that if he, you know, I mean, I would say if he was smart, he just He just says, I've had enough of this.

34:07.82
Mike
How much more do I need than 15 billion? I would probably be in the same place. And he's gonna go, I got 15 billion.

34:14.02
Henry
Yeah, true.

34:14.15
Mike
I got private jets. I got you know all this other kind of stuff. I don't need this hassle anymore. I don't need to, because everywhere he goes, he's gonna potentially get arrested. right He's going to get arrested, might as well be on a sanctions list.

34:22.84
Henry
yeah true

34:25.21
Mike
So he's just going to be like, ask, screw it. What I'm going to do is i'm goingnna I'm going to remove the feature that everybody is getting all you know in the grill about.

34:36.11
Mike
I'm not going to allow some human to advertise that, you know come here, click a button, and here's the catalog of all the different varieties of weed and fentanyl you can buy.

34:47.73
Henry
Okay.

34:47.98
Mike
and And he'll just get rid of that and and and he'll say, okay, is that good enough? Right. Is that good enough?

34:53.94
Henry
Mm-hmm.

34:53.94
Mike
And then, you know, you won't make any more money off telegram or whatever the case may be. You'll still have lots of users and that's just the way he does it. I don't know.

35:01.29
Henry
By the way, how does Telegram make money?

35:01.58
Mike
I have no idea.

35:04.41
Geoff
Aha. so we So that is that question. And and again, I ah bring that It feels like I bring this up on every third podcast, right? is if If you don't clearly know how a platform makes money, you know what are they doing with the day or how are they keeping the lights on?

35:21.51
Henry
Of course.

35:21.70
Geoff
Now, now as Mike said, it helps that they only have 30 or 40 people, so you know their overhead is not too high, but all those servers, bandwidth, billion users, that's that's a lot of money.

35:30.79
Henry
Oh yeah.

35:32.19
Geoff
So um so to some degree, it's self-funded from the you know Billions that he earned when he um so sold shares in his original social media site. ah he ah He gets donations, so free speech, blah, blah, blah, I'll send you $100.

35:52.76
Geoff
he um And he has he has started a Telegram to some degree has started ah putting ads into some of the in addition to the groups that we've been talking about.

36:03.21
Geoff
They also have one way broadcast channels. So you can actually just broadcast a one way message out to all your people. And they've been inserting ads in there. He's also had billion dollar investors who have put money into Telegram.

36:17.36
Henry
Ahh.

36:17.44
Geoff
But how and why they have how and why they've done that is a little like You know, they they don't have a lot of revenue to speak of. Why are people investing billions in the platform?

36:28.51
Geoff
It's kind of a question mark. Um, so he air quotes makes money through all of those different means, but it's not, you may not agree with Facebook's revenue model, but it's plain for all to see same with Google, you know, same with others, but it's not as clear with telegram.

36:47.84
Henry
Aha, so telegram. Do you think that he'd be getting a percentage of whatever the criminals sell on his platform?

36:55.70
Geoff
i don't think so because i don't know how i well

37:02.26
Henry
Who knows?

37:02.52
Geoff
It's possible. So the other thing we haven't talked about, in addition to the things Mike mentioned, he has also dabbled in cryptocurrency. And he did create a cryptocurrency that ah that was supported on the Telegram platform, probably used for some of these illegal transactions.

37:09.90
Henry
Okay

37:19.42
Geoff
And so if he owns a bunch of that cryptocurrency and it's being used and it's going up in value, um then he would make money there as well. So not sort of charging, if I buy 1,000 machine guns,

37:29.00
Henry
Okay.

37:31.95
Geoff
He's not taking a percentage of that. But if the transaction is happening in cryptocurrency and the cryptocurrency value goes up, it's possible he's profiting that way.

37:42.00
Henry
Gotcha.

37:42.25
Mike
Well, and if you if you want to step into kind of, you know, conspiracy theory territory, right?

37:42.67
Henry
Alright.

37:48.92
Mike
I mean, how much would the Russian government, hell, the US government, um the French, the Germans, whatever, pay this guy for every for access to every message that's sent on telegram?

38:05.80
Mike
Right? I mean, come on, right?

38:06.83
Henry
Well.

38:08.41
Mike
they this this stuff No, but this stuff, you know, this isn't this isn't like eating cats and dogs, right? this things this is This is basically like Interpol, right?

38:19.29
Mike
Deciding that there are too many, you know, kind of people coming across the Mediterranean in dinghies that somehow end up like a day later getting their hands on an Uzi and they're gunning down people on beaches and stuff like that.

38:34.55
Mike
or they're robbing people and in stores and stuff. like in you know You see all this stuff on social media, you don't know whether it's true or not, but you see like a lot of these kind of weird immigrant theft things, immigrant, they I'm quoting, I'm quoting.

38:46.38
Mike
right these These are just people who don't look like average London white people.

38:50.02
Henry
yeah yeah yeah

38:51.88
Mike
And and they're just like, you know they're riding up on a motorbike, they're pushing people out of cars and they're stealing the stuff or whatever. right Or they're pointing a gun at people. Who has guns in the UK? Nobody. Well, where do they get them from?

39:03.70
Mike
Right. And so all of a sudden you're the you're the British, the metropolitan police, and you're like, how do I, you know, how do I deal with that? And you're like, Oh, and you know, maybe you can just go and have a steak at some fancy place in in the Emirates and slide a suitcase across the Dura.

39:18.12
Henry
Yeah.

39:18.07
Mike
and he'll give you access to whatever you want.

39:18.79
Henry
Yeah. Yeah.

39:20.17
Mike
I mean, this is part of the problem, right? I mean, what this could be is simply a case of you have some law enforcement agencies that are saying, no, we gave you a subpoena, give us the information, be a good corporate citizen, whether it's just an IP address or whatever, but we know it's all unencrypted, give it to us.

39:37.64
Mike
And he's like, he's like no. But if you walk in and you you know you're you're a shady human with a billion dollars, He gives it to you. Who knows, right?

39:47.04
Henry
Yep. Yep.

39:48.69
Mike
I mean Zuckerberg theoretically, even though he's a shady human with a billion dollars, he he can't give you anything.

39:48.87
Henry
Well.

39:56.80
Mike
So, you know, let's just, you know, the the the thing that you understand, right, is that when you're talking about some kind of social media platform that is being accused of essentially kind of facilitating deep state ah criminal activity, it's probably also starts to blur into the operations of the business.

40:19.54
Henry
Yeah, yeah. Well, gentlemen, we've got a ton of interesting questions here. And actually, there's a lot of information that I i wasn't aware of, and you've cleared up. So thank you very much. And um also, if possible, could we, going forward on every future podcast, try and work in um eating cats and dogs naturally?

40:42.72
Mike
Absolutely, absolutely.

40:45.36
Henry
Alright, thank you. Okay, boys, thank you, and I look forward to our next ah little tête-tête. In the meantime, have a great week.

40:54.86
Geoff
Thanks everyone.

40:54.89
Mike
Thank you very much Henry.

40:56.81
Geoff
Bye for now.

40:57.74
Mike
Ciao guys.