Trampling on Telegram – Western Imperialism's Mask Comes Off
20:22 28.08.2024 (Updated: 20:24 29.08.2024)
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For the first time ever, the founder of a tech company was arrested by the freedom-loving West, allegedly because of undesirable content shared by the users. However, the truth behind why France arrested Pavel Durov, the billionaire tech mogul and founder of Telegram, involves geopolitics and imperialism.
The excuses given for the arrest – that Telegram, an app with nearly 1 billion users, is not cooperating with the Western governments in stopping drug traffickers, pornographers and other criminals – are farcical and shameless lies. The mask is slipping from the face of Western establishment, revealing a totalitarian elite that is obsessed with thought control and neo-colonialism.
Pavel Durov was arrested for NOT censoring people and thoughts. He was arrested because the US deep state and special interest groups do not have backdoor access to Telegram in order to monitor and ban users and free speech. Note that the app does claim that it voluntarily removes millions of posts of harmful content each day.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson in April, Durov disclosed that when he came to the US with his engineer, American spy agencies asked the engineer to use certain pieces of software (open-sourced libraries) that would create a backdoor for the CIA/NSA. Unfortunately for the US, the engineer was not for sale.
Telegram’s trauma is similar to how TikTok was bullied by the US. Eventually, TikTok agreed to place its data in the US and then employ many ex-employees of the American deep state. When that was not enough to control the popularity of pro-Palestine videos, US politicians screamed about total ban, until TikTok relented.
It’s also the same reason why the US persecuted Julian Assange and viciously attacked Wikileaks.
There are many dimensions to the Telegram drama, and we will deconstruct the deceptions one by one.
Western Illusion
Free speech, free media, free market, rule of law, rules-based order etc. are all wonderful propaganda slogans as long as the globalists keep winning. The moment the Western deep state and corporations start losing the narratives or the market share, they reveal their true evil nature.
As American singer Frank Zappa once warned, “At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”
Why the arrest of Pavel Durov is illogical and illegal
First, when was the last time a tech company’s executives were arrested for the content – including communication – created by the users?
Can the CEOs of Google and Microsoft be arrested because criminals use Gmail and Outlook? Can Jeff Bezos be sentenced to 20 years in jail because banned pornographic materials are found on Amazon’s cloud servers? How come Zuckerberg is walking free, when Facebook has been widely used by neo-Nazis, ISIS terrorists, child abusers and so on? Can we hold Apple and various phone companies around the world for allowing drug cartels to use smartphones?
Durov is accused of being complicit to money laundering, so why not shut down all crypto currencies and arrest the CEOs of crypto firms, since Bitcoin and others are the prime tools for such transactions?
Oh, by the way, many “respectable” banks such as HSBC, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan Chase have been found to have laundered trillions of dollars on behalf of criminals and terrorists around the world. Was a single CEO arrested? Of course, not!
And those crimes of the banks were far worse, since the money laundering helped banks make real profits. As for Telegram, it does not get a commission.
Thus, for anyone using basic logic and common sense, Pavel’s arrest makes absolutely no sense. That’s precisely why the US created Section 230 – part of the Communications Act – to provide immunity for the likes of Telegram.
When Telegram and Pavel were darlings of the West
Let us not forget that Telegram and its founder were loved by the Western establishment for a decade.
Pavel Durov, the tech genius, left Russia a decade ago because he refused to share information with the Russian government. He has been living in Dubai, where Telegram has had its headquarters since 2017. Later, in 2021, Pavel became a citizen of the UAE. He is still a citizen of Russia as well.
More astonishingly, just three years ago, Pavel Durov got the French citizenship because of his extraordinary skills, “eminent actions,” and contributions to the influence of France and prosperity of its international economic relations. This circumvented the French laws, which have several conditions such as the person must have lived in France for 2-5 years. Rumors are that French President Macron personally intervened to get the passport approved and expedited. Now, the same Telegram that won him the French nationality, is used against him. How do you say, “Hypocritical and Suspicious” in French?
When Macron went on social media to defend his action, the CEO of Rumble – a video website/app that has far more free speech than YouTube – tweeted, “Now we have leaders of the world pretending they are committed to free expression, when I hold facts that say otherwise. The boldness of world leaders to lie the way they do, makes me sick.
Let us not forget what happened when Russia temporarily blocked Telegram in 2018 for lack of collaboration with the FSB, which wanted access to the “secret chats” feature in the app. Immediately, the holier-than-thou Western establishment unanimously rose to defend Pavel Durov! A group of twenty-six prominent NGOs – including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders, and the Committee to Protect Journalists – condemned the Russian court's decision to block Telegram.
Because, you know, freeeeeedom!
At that time, the West glorified Telegram which was known for never censoring and almost never cooperating with governments and courts on deleting contents. The West loved Telegram when the app was seen as a tool to topple governments that do not bow to the globalists.
Telegram’s Color Revolutions
Specifically, Telegram was seen as the perfect tool for color revolutions in Russia and neighboring countries.
In fact, when the US/EU attempted a regime-change in Belarus in 2020, Telegram played a vital role. The Belarus protests were called the “Telegram Revolution” – as opposed to George Soros’ revolutions, which are named after colors like orange, yellow and purple.
Similarly, in 2014, during the CIA-led color revolution that used neo-Nazis and snipers to overthrow the democratically elected leader in Ukraine, Telegram was a very popular app among the organizers, but Pavel refused to cooperate with the Russian authorities. In fact, the platform has never disclosed any user data to third parties, including governments.
For many years (2014-2018), the US-funded jihadists such as ISIS and related groups in Syria were using Telegram for propaganda. Needless to say, no Western government demanded Telegram ban those groups. That was “good terrorism,” and the head-chopping Islamists were marketed as “moderate rebels” by the US.
Pavel Durov and his brother – who is a brilliant mathematician and a partner of Pavel’s tech adventures – are very smart and stubborn in their principles, but are naïve in geopolitics.
The Russian brothers’ libertarian views go back to 2007 when they founded VK (VKontakte), the “Russian Facebook.” When that social media app became the most popular in Russia, the usual suspects in the US tried to use the app to foment anti-Putin protests during the 2012 election. That’s when the rift deepened, and Pavel got his citizenship of Saint Kitts and Nevis, a Caribbean island he had never visited. In 2013, Pavel also created his next blockbuster social media: Telegram.
When Telegram’s free spirit turned against Western interests
Western elites have not been afraid of revolutions for a long time, since they thought they had figured out the formula to control the masses. Just have elections every few years and let the people fight one another. Thus, liberals will hate conservatives, and vice versa. The ruling class is always safe.
However, that confidence has been rapidly eroding since 2015/2016 due to the rise of Trump, support for BREXIT, and the rise of populism and the so-called “far-right” groups in Europe. All of those phenomena happened because of the shrinking middle class, stagnant wages, enormous spike in cost of living, extreme wokeism, and the endless wars of the globalists.
However, rather than change their ruthless ways, the globalists have been doubling down on censorship and totalitarian methods. In Europe, people are not only getting banned on social media, but are getting arrested for memes, simple comments and retweets, or sharing not-so politically correct ideas in private chat groups. It’s an Orwellian monstrosity.
Europe has banned Russian media outlets, because the elites want Europeans to stay dumb and brainwashed to keep supporting the hopeless war in Ukraine. However, there is one social media that is outside the control of the US/EU: Telegram, where people can find the raw truth about the Ukraine-Russia war.
Telegram is not only good for instant news about the world, it also has a lot of raw photos and videos that would get readily censored in Western media. These have powerful impact on public opinion, especially on issues like the ongoing genocide in Gaza, which is completely sanitized in the US/EU mainstream media and social media.
Similarly, right-wing populism, heresy regarding COVID vaccines and “conspiracy theories” are freely shared on Telegram. By the way, anything that goes against US imperialism or Western corporatism is labeled as misinformation, disinformation, trope, canard, conspiracy theory etc.
Also, facts that go against the globalist narrative have a new name: “Malinformation.” Something can be 100% true, but it can be banned! For example, during the pandemic, nobody could say that Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine did not prevent transmission of the virus! There were much worse statistics like the more vaccines and boosters that a person got, the more the person was likely to die! Even though the stats were published in government websites, you could not repeat them on US social media. This is the sort of ridiculous “free speech” that the US is so proud of.
The golden era of the internet was from 2006 to 2016, when the combination of 4G, smartphones, apps and free speech made the internet fun and informative. It has been downhill ever since.
Now, the US and Europe are at the vanguard of censorship and thought policing, especially with absurd, inconsistent and illogical rules.
At the geopolitical level, the same Telegram that helped spark US-sponsored color revolutions in the past is now working against the globalists’ empires. In Africa, Telegram played a significant role in fueling anti-US and anti-French sentiments in West Africa. The African grassroots groups could not use Facebook, since they will get quickly banned.
The last straw that broke the camel’s back was Iran’s hacking of the Israeli government and releasing hundreds of thousands of documents on Telegram a couple of weeks ago.
These are the real reasons behind the arrest of Pavel Durov. Nothing to do with drug traffickers or pornography.
CIA’s drug trafficking
By the way, the world’s biggest drug trafficker is the CIA, which took over the title from the British Empire after WW2. The Brits, of course, were the kingpins of opium smuggling for two centuries – that’s how they were able to defeat China in the 1840s.
For decades after WW2, the CIA trafficked heroin and opium from the Golden Triangle of Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. In 1972, Alfred McCoy, a graduate student at Yale described the CIA’s role in his book called, “The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia.” He exposed various operations, including how a CIA-front company known as “Air America” transported opium and heroin. Although the book earned acclaim and popularity, the entire US government – CIA, FBI, IRS, Department of Health, Education etc. – harassed McCoy so much that he had to flee to Australia.
50 years later, the book was updated and republished under the title: The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. They don’t make Americans like Alfred McCoy anymore. Now, the entire mainstream media, the collection of corporate CEOs, and all the think tanks regurgitate the same talking point like zombies.
In the 1980s, the CIA switched to cocaine trafficking and even flooded the streets and inner cities of America. After 9/11, opium production in Afghanistan skyrocketed; and US/NATO soldiers were seen defending the poppy fields there.
Interestingly, a congressman entered into the official records a quick summary of the CIA’s drug trafficking history.
Now, think about the excuse for arresting the founder of Telegram.
Encryption
The real attack on Telegram is not about encryption, which is rarely used inside the app. Perhaps 90% of all the content is public, just like in Twitter or Facebook. There are group chats, but they are not encrypted. People can have “secret chats” that no government or even Telegram can view. However, this feature is difficult to turn on, and works only when both parties are online.
Compare that to WhatsApp and Signal, which provide end-to-end encryption for all communication. Isn’t it strange that criminals are not using these apps? There are two possibilities:
The criminals are using these apps, but the Western governments are turning a blind eye
The criminals are NOT using these apps, because they know that the US deep state has backdoor access and the encryption keys.
I would say that both are likely.
WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, which is blatantly in bed with the US deep stage agencies.
Signal is deceptively secure. However, if you look at the history, its core technology was funded by a CIA front Open Technology Fund (OTF), which was part of Radio Free Asia. Signal’s Chairwoman is Katherine Maher, who has worked for the Atlantic Council (funded by NATO & military-industrial complex), US State Dept, National Endowment of Democracy (the regime-change group) etc.
Conclusion – Here’s what they want
So, what do the Western elites want? They want complete control over social media. Specifically, they would like to:
Monitor and collect all the social media posts to keep track of global trends
Control and throttle specific topics and users – i.e., what topic trends, what does not, who is popular, who is not and so on.
Ban problematic users, contents, phrases and words
Get personal details on users
Have a responsive social media company that acquiesces to requests from the Western governments
Employ ex-employees of CIA, NSA, FBI, US State Dept, NED and other members of the “blob.”
Enjoy backdoor access to the media, so that the deep state can do what it wants without depending on the management or the technology experts of the app.
In essence, the globalists want total control over narratives. This is why they hate Wikileaks, TikTok (Chinese company) and Telegram (Russian or a neutral company).
Americans and Europeans are living in a delusional garden of freedom that functions only under limited conditions – when people don’t think critically and the system is accepted without questioning.
The entire political, economic and social engineering of the contemporary West are based on lies on top of lies. Many people outside the Western bubble can already see it. It’s only a matter of time when Americans and Europeans will wake up to reality. Silencing the likes of Pavel Durov is not going to stop the awakening process.
