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If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their service

If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? This is a very slippery slope. I don't see a problem with requiring a company to cooperate with a court order to release data. However if a company does not have this data (because it's encrypted) it should not be liable or be required to collect such data.

actionfromafar 2y ago
Agreed. But Telegram seems to have this data unencrypted.
lz400 2y ago
but that's exactly what's happening. They have the data and they don't comply. Phone companies and ISPs get court-ordered to release data all the time and they do it or go to jail too
Dalewyn 2y ago
>how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? They are already liable unless they follow the law to enjoy certain exemptions.
KaiserPro 2y ago
> how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? Very far. but france is a civil law system. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_responsibility_in_French_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_responsibility_in_Fre...) if you don't comply with legally valid requests, then you are going to be held liable for it. But thats the same in common law as well. If an hosting provider in the USA refuses to act on reports of hosting copyrighted material, then they are liable for damages. Safe Harbour has its limits.
jeroenhd 2y ago
That's the deal: ISPs aren't responsible for hosting child abuse content, phishing sites, crime ring messaging infrastructure, or pirated content, as long as they work with the relevant authorities to take such content down or hand over relevant evidence. ISPs hand over phone records and anything else they have on people. They set wiretaps, they can triangulate users, you name it. When the government asks Telegram for information, they get a history dump. When they ask a carrier for information, they get a history dump (for anything stored on ISP servers, such as email or some text messages, depending on the warrant) _and a live copy of every bit of information that flows over the connection_. Email inboxes get handed over all the time, and server hosts must take down content within days to hours depending on how illegal the content reported is. Services like Google have been handing out information like "what users were in this general area at this time" because they track that stuff (which is why Android's location history has degraded significantly; Google moved that stuff to on-device storage for this reason). As for data collection: in some places, the government can force you to collect data. Some "logless" VPN/email providers have been compelled to turn on logging for certain accounts, for instance. The alternative, which was almost a thing in the early internet, was that ISPs were responsible for all content on their systems.
- RandomThoughts3 2y ago
  > When the government asks Telegram for information, they get a history dump. The whole issue is that they don't. Telegram doesn't provide information when asked to by law inforcement. That's literally the reason Durov is being charged.
thefz 2y ago
> If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? > This is a very slippery slope. I wonder what is hard to understand. Is there CP/violent content in Instagram? Nope. In Facebook? Nope. In YouTube? nope. Why? These companies are held responsible for the public content, published in clear, on their platforms and they enforce moderation to remove illegal content. Telegram is in clear and has public content violating the law. They should have done the same, they did not.
- an_guy 2y ago
  > Is there CP/violent content in Instagram? Nope. In Facebook? Nope. In YouTube? nope. Yes. Infact you can find public groups, pages and channels posting all kind of illegal stuff (drugs, weapons, fraud, dox..)
  - simion314 2y ago
    Really, report them they have to take them down, if they do not take CP down then make a hacker News thread , you for sure will be on the top of the page.
    - NayamAmarshe 2y ago
      Telegram regularly takes down such channels too but their mistake? They underestimated the moderation team size and move at a slower pace than other trillion dollar corpos.
      - BlueTemplar 2y ago
        The main mistake seems to have been to ignore requests from law enforcement - and since these requests allegedly only numbered in the dozens, it's not a team size issue.
- ramblerman 2y ago
  > I wonder what is hard to understand The fact that you can't understand the difference between facebook/youtube and an ISP. An ISP would have to vet every site they open up to their users. Which would effectively incentivize an AOL like internet with just 5-10 websites.
mrtksn 2y ago
CEO's of ISP's who reject providing the information to the courts and the law enforcement will certainly go to jail. That's why we don't have network operators for criminals. We have seen the demand for it in the crypto(as in cryptocurrency) space and many went to prison for running networks and tools for criminals, especially people running cryptocurrency tumblers were caught, prosecuted and imprisoned. I don't believe in a CEO that takes on the law enforcement for higher morals or even money, that's mafia's line of work. In some cases maybe its possible to have high moral outlaws but they will have to shoot at the police when they are coming to make an arrest.
HL33tibCe7 2y ago
> ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? If you host illegal content from your home network, the police alert your ISP, and the ISP did nothing, you can be sure the police will arrest them too.
bananapub 2y ago
> If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? er...did you miss the last twenty years? the US government destroyed a website for prostitution ads: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/backpage-principals-convicted-500m-prostitution-promotion-scheme https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/backpage-principals-convicted... the US government has destroyed every darknet market they could find, despite most of them not selling any drugs themselves. CSAM is taken extremely seriously and any web site that hosts it will be pursued to the end of the earth. etc. this is not a new thing at all. > However if a company does not have this data (because it's encrypted) it should not be liable or be required to collect such data. Telegram deliberately and suspiciously encrypts approximately nothing in a way that helps anyone, so this is completely irrelevant.
BlueTemplar 2y ago
Somewhat - ISPs and phone companies (and web(site) hosting companies) tend to be less liable because they don't engage into editorializing : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41390173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41390173 (Algorithmic feeds are very popular amongst platforms, not sure that Telegram does that too though ?)
panarky 2y ago
The "slippery slope" is a logical fallacy.

actionfromafar 2y ago

Agreed. But Telegram seems to have this data unencrypted.

lz400 2y ago

but that's exactly what's happening. They have the data and they don't comply. Phone companies and ISPs get court-ordered to release data all the time and they do it or go to jail too

Dalewyn 2y ago

>how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? They are already liable unless they follow the law to enjoy certain exemptions.

KaiserPro 2y ago

> how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? Very far. but france is a civil law system. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_responsibility_in_French_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_responsibility_in_Fre...) if you don't comply with legally valid requests, then you are going to be held liable for it. But thats the same in common law as well. If an hosting provider in the USA refuses to act on reports of hosting copyrighted material, then they are liable for damages. Safe Harbour has its limits.

jeroenhd 2y ago

That's the deal: ISPs aren't responsible for hosting child abuse content, phishing sites, crime ring messaging infrastructure, or pirated content, as long as they work with the relevant authorities to take such content down or hand over relevant evidence. ISPs hand over phone records and anything else they have on people. They set wiretaps, they can triangulate users, you name it. When the government asks Telegram for information, they get a history dump. When they ask a carrier for information, they get a history dump (for anything stored on ISP servers, such as email or some text messages, depending on the warrant) _and a live copy of every bit of information that flows over the connection_. Email inboxes get handed over all the time, and server hosts must take down content within days to hours depending on how illegal the content reported is. Services like Google have been handing out information like "what users were in this general area at this time" because they track that stuff (which is why Android's location history has degraded significantly; Google moved that stuff to on-device storage for this reason). As for data collection: in some places, the government can force you to collect data. Some "logless" VPN/email providers have been compelled to turn on logging for certain accounts, for instance. The alternative, which was almost a thing in the early internet, was that ISPs were responsible for all content on their systems.

RandomThoughts3 2y ago
> When the government asks Telegram for information, they get a history dump. The whole issue is that they don't. Telegram doesn't provide information when asked to by law inforcement. That's literally the reason Durov is being charged.

thefz 2y ago

> If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? > This is a very slippery slope. I wonder what is hard to understand. Is there CP/violent content in Instagram? Nope. In Facebook? Nope. In YouTube? nope. Why? These companies are held responsible for the public content, published in clear, on their platforms and they enforce moderation to remove illegal content. Telegram is in clear and has public content violating the law. They should have done the same, they did not.

an_guy 2y ago
> Is there CP/violent content in Instagram? Nope. In Facebook? Nope. In YouTube? nope. Yes. Infact you can find public groups, pages and channels posting all kind of illegal stuff (drugs, weapons, fraud, dox..)
- simion314 2y ago
  Really, report them they have to take them down, if they do not take CP down then make a hacker News thread , you for sure will be on the top of the page.
  - NayamAmarshe 2y ago
    Telegram regularly takes down such channels too but their mistake? They underestimated the moderation team size and move at a slower pace than other trillion dollar corpos.
    - BlueTemplar 2y ago
      The main mistake seems to have been to ignore requests from law enforcement - and since these requests allegedly only numbered in the dozens, it's not a team size issue.
ramblerman 2y ago
> I wonder what is hard to understand The fact that you can't understand the difference between facebook/youtube and an ISP. An ISP would have to vet every site they open up to their users. Which would effectively incentivize an AOL like internet with just 5-10 websites.

mrtksn 2y ago

CEO's of ISP's who reject providing the information to the courts and the law enforcement will certainly go to jail. That's why we don't have network operators for criminals. We have seen the demand for it in the crypto(as in cryptocurrency) space and many went to prison for running networks and tools for criminals, especially people running cryptocurrency tumblers were caught, prosecuted and imprisoned. I don't believe in a CEO that takes on the law enforcement for higher morals or even money, that's mafia's line of work. In some cases maybe its possible to have high moral outlaws but they will have to shoot at the police when they are coming to make an arrest.

HL33tibCe7 2y ago

> ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? If you host illegal content from your home network, the police alert your ISP, and the ISP did nothing, you can be sure the police will arrest them too.

bananapub 2y ago

> If Durov is liable for crimes committed on his platform how far away are we from making phone companies and ISPs liable for crimes committed using their services? er...did you miss the last twenty years? the US government destroyed a website for prostitution ads: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/backpage-principals-convicted-500m-prostitution-promotion-scheme https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/backpage-principals-convicted... the US government has destroyed every darknet market they could find, despite most of them not selling any drugs themselves. CSAM is taken extremely seriously and any web site that hosts it will be pursued to the end of the earth. etc. this is not a new thing at all. > However if a company does not have this data (because it's encrypted) it should not be liable or be required to collect such data. Telegram deliberately and suspiciously encrypts approximately nothing in a way that helps anyone, so this is completely irrelevant.

BlueTemplar 2y ago

Somewhat - ISPs and phone companies (and web(site) hosting companies) tend to be less liable because they don't engage into editorializing : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41390173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41390173 (Algorithmic feeds are very popular amongst platforms, not sure that Telegram does that too though ?)

panarky 2y ago

The "slippery slope" is a logical fallacy.