France reportedly arrested a Big Tech CEO, took his phone, detained him for days and continues to restrict his travel. Here’s what he told independent journalist Tucker Carlson about the European Union’s crackdown on online speech.
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov criticized the EU’s assault on free speech during an interview with Carlson that aired on June 9. Durov, who spent four days in detainment and can only leave France with permission during an investigation, warned that all Big Tech platforms operating in the EU are at the mercy of every tyrannical government in the bloc.
Durov described to Carlson just how severe and anti-free speech EU laws can be. “It's actually part of the Digital Services Act (DSA). You have to remove anything [that] one of the European countries demands you remove for the–entirety of the European Union,” he said. “So if you have, for example, Romania or Estonia or any other–very highly respected countries demanding that you remove, like most of Telegram channels, for whatever reason, you have to remove them."
The Telegram CEO went on to say that the EU demanded immediate censorship while any recourse for platforms and individuals was far from prompt. “Then you can appeal. Well, it will take you probably several years, but you have to remove them within like a very short timeframe,” he said.
Prior to the interview, Durov said in an X post that Nicolas Lerner, head of French intelligence, had approached him ahead of the Romanian elections and asked him to “ban conservative voices in Romania.”
EU and member states such as Germany have frequently cracked down on free speech and placed pressure on Big Tech platforms to do the same. This approach has included inquiries into Elon Musk’s X for its free speech allowances and even threatening Musk over an interview with President Donald Trump while he was running for office. A 60 Minutes segment on German enforcement of anti-free speech laws exposed pre-dawn raids over memes, stiff fines, and jail sentences.
Carlson suggested that the EU and its member states fear platforms that allow free speech because the platforms allow European citizens to speak freely and organize more easily.
“I've always thought that the problem that you have as the person who owns and runs Telegram is that you make it easy for people to come together online. You have the channels. And that… is potentially a massive threat to governments because it's not simply communicating one-on-one,” Carlson said. The podcast host further noted that users “can create their own channels just like a TV channel and reach a lot of like-minded people. And they could potentially organize.”
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