This is one of the most serious accusations facing Pavel Durov: among the many reasons for which the CEO of Telegram was charged on Wednesday 28 August by the French courts is “complicity in an organised gang that distributes the image of a minor for the purposes of child pornography”. Pavel Durov is suspected of having knowingly allowed groups dedicated to child pornography content to flourish on his platform and of having refused to respond to requests from the French courts in cases of crimes against children. According to the French courts, politicalAccording to documents from the French case, it was a request for the identification of an alleged child abuser that remained a dead letter and was at the origin of the procedure, which since then extended to other suspicions, which led to the arrest of Pavel Durov.
When it comes to combating child pornography content, Telegram is a special case. Despite its 900 million users, it is the only major digital company that does not collaborate with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), an American NGO that centralizes the world’s largest database of such content. This organization works in collaboration with law enforcement to try to find victims. It also co-manages a system that facilitates the automatic detection of child pornography content so that social networks can block its distribution.
However, Telegram does not share any information with NCMEC: the company does not send any reports to the organization and does not respond to its requests for information. “Telegram is a special case in terms of lack of moderation and even disinterest in the fight against child sexual exploitation on its platform”John Shehan, speaking to NBC News, regrets. According to the NGO’s vice president, Pavel Durov’s arrest sends a positive signal.
Telegram’s rules prohibit child pornography content and the company assures “actively moderate dangerous content, including child pornography”In Germany, Telegram’s failure to cooperate with police and courts led to a major standoff in 2022 between the company and the Interior Ministry, which threatened to ban messaging in the country.
A bit of information transmission.
At the time, as the weekly revealed spiegelTelegram ended up passing information about suspected child abusers to German investigators after a discussion between senior German officials and Pavel Durov himself. Yes, explain it. mirror, Since then, Telegram has stopped passing on user information to German authorities, although it has complied with some of their requests, in particular those concerning the removal of illegal groups.
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