THE SET-UP: This little gem stood out among the strange headlines I stumbled upon while assembling today’s RUNDOWN:
“Deepfake Pornography Crisis”—you’d be hard-pressed to find a collection of words more emblematic of Big Tech’s increasingly smarmy trajectory. - jp
TITLE: The Accelerationists’ App: How Telegram Became the “Center of Gravity” for a New Breed of Domestic Terrorists
https://www.propublica.org/article/telegram-pavel-durov-arrest-domestic-terrorism-extremism
EXCERPT: In late December, a 26-year-old construction worker in Sarasota County, Florida, used his phone to send a flurry of ominous online posts.
Alexander Lightner, tapping away on his Samsung Galaxy, announced his intention to commit mass murder, according to federal court records. He used the coded language of a new breed of neo-Nazis who call themselves Accelerationists. Lightner wrote that he planned to become a “saint” — the term followers use for someone who advances their racist cause through lethal acts of terror — and to set a new “Highscore,” or death toll.
Lightner launched what federal prosecutors allege were threats on Telegram, the sprawling, no-holds-barred platform that has become a hive for the movement. Accelerationists aim to speed the collapse of modern civilization and create a white ethno-state from the ashes of today’s democracies. Deep in the chatter of the platform’s roughly 900 million users, these extremists have created a constellation of Telegram channels where they encourage followers like Lightner to assassinate political leaders, sabotage power stations and railways, and commit mass murder.
A week after firing off his alleged threats on Telegram, Lightner woke up from a nap at his home to his father’s shouts: “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s this? Are these people here for us?”
Lightner threw an illegal, homemade silencer into a laundry basket, according to a summary of his interview with federal agents. Then he stepped into the sunlight. In his front yard, agents in camouflage and body armor pointed rifles at him. An armored vehicle faced his family home, its massive battering ram aimed at the front door.
An FBI agent asked Lightner if he knew why federal agents were at his door.
Lightner answered simply: “Telegram,” according to court records.
ProPublica and FRONTLINE have been investigating Telegram’s role in a string of recent alleged far-right acts of sabotage and murder, and how the company’s inaction allowed extremists to plan and even advertise their crimes. Researchers have long warned that Telegram routinely allows extremists to share propaganda aimed at inciting violence, noting that the Islamic State group and al-Qaida were able to use the service for years with little interference.
“Telegram plays a key role in the perpetuation of militant accelerationism,” said Michael Loadenthal, a research professor at the University of Cincinnati and director of the Prosecution Project, which tracks felony cases involving political violence in the U.S. The company, he said, “has shown that deplatforming violent and hateful content is not its priority.”
Before [Pavel] Durov’s arrest, a Telegram spokesperson responded to questions from ProPublica and FRONTLINE in messages on the platform. The spokesperson said that the company bars users from calling for acts of violence, adding that moderators remove millions of pieces of harmful content from the platform every day. “As Telegram grows, it will continue to solve potential moderation problems with efficiency, innovation and respect for privacy and free speech,” the spokesperson, who used the name Remi Vaughn, said in the messages.
Yet ProPublica and FRONTLINE found that Telegram today is the main nexus of far-right Accelerationist crime. Law enforcement agencies on both sides of the Atlantic have interrupted a series of criminal schemes, including:
In July, a Georgian man accused of leading an Accelerationist terror group was arrested in Europe for allegedly soliciting people to carry out murders and bombings in the U.S. Michail Chkhikvishvili allegedly used Telegram to communicate and distribute his group’s propaganda and is facing charges in New York. He is being held in Moldova pending extradition, according to Wired. ProPublica and FRONTLINE could not locate counsel for him.
The same month, federal prosecutors charged an Accelerationist named Andrew Takhistov with plotting to destroy an energy facility in New Jersey. They allege he used Telegram to incite racial violence and share a how-to guide for white supremacist terrorism that included instructions on the use of Mylar balloons and Molotov cocktails to damage power substations. An attorney for Takhistov did not respond to a request for comment.
In June, Manhattan prosecutors announced charges against Hayden Espinosa, accusing the Texas man of selling illegal guns and firearm components through a Telegram channel aimed at white supremacists and Accelerationists. Espinosa allegedly used a contraband phone to sell weapons and gun parts while incarcerated in federal prison. He has pleaded not guilty.
A judge in England recently sentenced a British man to eight years in prison for plotting to carry out a suicide bombing at a synagogue. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, 19-year-old Mason Reynolds was “the administrator of a Telegram channel which shared far right extremist, antisemitic and racist views, as well as manuals on bomb building and how to 3D print firearms.”
Brandon Russell, a former leader of the Atomwaffen Division, a now-defunct neo-Nazi group tied to five murders, was charged last year with planning an attack aimed at disabling the power system in Baltimore. Russell and a co-defendant, Sarah Beth Clendaniel, used Telegram to organize the sabotage scheme, according to prosecutors. Clendaniel has pleaded guilty; Russell faces trial later this year. Attorneys for the duo declined to comment.
And then there is Lightner. U.S. prosecutors say in court filings that Lightner went to Telegram to discuss his plans to use a .308-caliber rifle to kill as many people as possible. He remains in jail awaiting trial on federal charges of making threats online and possessing an illegal silencer. He has pleaded not guilty. His attorney declined to comment.
TITLE: Germany’s Far Right Is in a Panic Over Telegram
https://www.wired.com/story/germanys-far-right-is-in-a-panic-over-telegram/
EXCERPT: Soon after the arrest of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov, a warning that was viewed more than 85,000 times started circulating among Germany’s far right: “Back up your Telegram data as quickly as you can and clean your account.”
The message came from Kim Dotcom, the embattled German founder of the now-defunct digital piracy website Megaupload who is set to be extradited from New Zealand, and who knows a thing or two about facing penalties for illegal activity on the internet.
Telegram users may have reason to fear after French authorities threw the book at Durov, charging him with complicity in crimes that take place on the app, including the sharing of child pornography and the trading of narcotics. If Durov can be held liable for crimes on the app, so too can the criminals perpetrating them, the logic goes.” Neo-Nazis’ favorite app is staring down an existential threat, and they’re not quite sure what to do about it.
Telegram has become indispensable to the far right. Despite the hand-wringing, most extremism experts don’t expect them to go anywhere, barring a wholesale shutdown of the app. There are several reasons for this. While Telegram may call itself a “messaging app with a focus on speed and security,” it often functions more like a platform. Users can create massive multiadmin groups with up to 200,000 members. Channels can be unlimited in size.
Combine that with the fact that these groups and channels enjoy near untouchability, unlike on most other major social media platforms, and it makes an irresistible cocktail for spreading information and disinformation far and wide. In comparison to the sprawling terms of service that competitors like Meta have, Telegram’s German “terms of use” come out to a whopping 100 words (three of which are “terms,” “of,” and “use”).
That’s been part of Durov’s MO for Telegram since day one. Durov created the app after skyrocketing to tech stardom as the founder of VKontakte, or VK, a Russian clone of Facebook. But when the Kremlin began pressuring Durov to share VK user data with the Federal Security Service, he fled the country, cashed out of the app, and founded Telegram, promising never to hand over user data to governments. The company brags on its FAQ page: “To this day, we have disclosed 0 bytes of user data to third parties, including governments.”
Telegram’s reputation attracted the far right in droves around 2019, following a spate of blocks and bans from Facebook and what was then known as Twitter. “They want to spread these messages without any content moderation happening,” Jan Penfrat, senior policy adviser at European Digital Rights, a network of European NGOs, tells WIRED. “They want to be able to spread content that might be illegal under German law or might be otherwise removed on other platforms due to infringements of the terms of service of those platforms. And they can do that on Telegram.”
TITLE: Big tech's 'tobacco moment'? Durov, Musk, and the geopolitical taming of tech CEOs
https://www.arabianbusiness.com/politics-economics/big-techs-tobacco-moment-durov-musk-and-the-geopolitical-taming-of-tech-ceos
EXCERPT: While Durov’s legal troubles were unfolding in France, another tech titan was embroiled in a heated confrontation halfway across the world. Elon Musk, the mercurial owner of X (formerly Twitter), found himself locked in a war of words with Brazilian authorities over content moderation and free speech.
The conflict reached a boiling point when Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the “immediate and complete suspension” of X in Brazil. The ban came after the platform failed to comply with court orders to remove accounts accused of spreading misinformation and undermining democratic institutions.
Musk, true to form, did not take the ban lying down. He launched a barrage of incendiary tweets, calling de Moraes an “evil dictator cosplaying as a judge” and accusing him of “trying to destroy democracy in Brazil.” The tech billionaire’s rhetoric escalated to the point of threatening “reciprocal seizure of government assets” in response to court orders against his businesses.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva weighed in, asserting that all individuals and companies operating in Brazil must comply with the country’s laws. “He can’t go around insulting presidents, insulting deputies, insulting the Senate, insulting the Chamber, insulting the Supreme Court,” Lula said of Musk. “Who does he think he is?”
These high-profile cases are not isolated incidents, but rather signs of a broader shift in the geopolitical landscape of technology, according to geopolitical strategist and founder of The Geopolitical Business Inc., Abishur Prakash, who sees them as part of a larger trend.
“Governments are recognising the power of technology to change the balance of power,” Prakash told Arabian Business.
“Before, this was purely conceptual or narrow. But now, every geopolitical crisis has technology embedded in it on some level, from US-China tensions around AI and TikTok to Israeli-Iranian conflicts involving hacking.”
This convergence of geopolitics and technology, which Prakash terms “Next Geopolitics,” is redrawing the boundaries of national influence. He pointed to examples like Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, being partly governed by City Brain, an AI system from Chinese tech giant Alibaba. “Through technology, China’s footprint extends into Southeast Asia in a new way,” Prakash said.
“From Silicon Valley to London to Tokyo, Western technology executives have to brace themselves for government scrutiny and action in geographies aligned with Western adversaries. Just as Telegram’s CEO, Pavel Durov, was detained in France, could an American technology executive be detained in Azerbaijan, who is aligned with Moscow?” he added.
Historically, established tech giants operated with a degree of confidence that outright bans were unlikely. However, the paradigm, Prakash believes, has shifted dramatically. “The idea of being banned was seldom dangled on the heads of established technology giants. However, if this is how capitals are thinking” tech firms are now forced to reassess their global strategies.
The confrontations between tech leaders and national governments echo, in some ways, the tobacco industry’s reckoning in the late 20th century. Just as tobacco executives were called to account for the societal impacts of their products, tech CEOs are now facing increased scrutiny and potential legal consequences for the effects of their platforms on democracy, public discourse, and national security.
The era of relatively unfettered expansion for global tech platforms appears to be giving way to a period of increased regulation, scrutiny, and potential legal jeopardy for tech leaders.
For Pavel Durov, the immediate future involves navigating the French legal system while being prohibited from leaving the country. Elon Musk faces the challenge of rebuilding X’s presence in Brazil while managing the fallout from his confrontational approach.
“Technology companies are being viewed as pawns in geopolitics, to be played on the global chessboard. This outlook only existed in China, but is spreading into the West too,” said Prakash.
“The reason is that geopolitics has reached a critical juncture. It is being accepted across the world, that there is no going back to the old status quo environment.”