Telegram brand displayed on a damaged cellphone display screen. Illustration picture taken in Krakow, Poland on August 27, 2024.
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Following the current arrest of its founder in France, Telegram is now going through potential authorized troubles in South Korea.
The nation’s chief police investigator has introduced a preliminary investigation into the instant-messaging platform’s potential position in abetting intercourse crimes, based on a report from the native Yonhap Information Company.
This comes towards the backdrop of South Korea’s efforts to deal with the unfold of deepfake pornography that has been focusing on younger ladies, together with youngsters, within the nation.
The probe poses one other main authorized problem to Telegram after its founder and chief government, Pavel Durov, was arrested in France on Aug. 24 for alleged offenses associated to the messaging app.
Parallels within the instances
Durov, the 39-year-old Russian-born billionaire, was arrested by French authorities following a preliminary investigation into Telegram launched on July 8.
Much like South Korea’s investigation, French authorities have been probing the platform’s position within the distribution of pornographic pictures of minors, in addition to facilitating organized crime, drug trafficking and fraud.
Durov was reportedly accused of failing to mitigate such felony actions on the platform. Telegram mentioned in a assertion posted on social media platform X that it abides by EU legal guidelines and that Durov had “nothing to cover.”
In keeping with Yonhap’s report on Monday, Woo Jong-soo, head of the Nationwide Workplace of Investigation, drew connections between their case and the one in France and mentioned there have been plans to collaborate with their French counterparts and different worldwide establishments.
The investigation may very well be difficult by the truth that Telegram doesn’t readily present investigation knowledge, corresponding to account info, to any state investigative our bodies, together with these within the U.S., Woo reportedly mentioned.
Telegram’s refusal to share info with investigators when required by regulation has additionally been famous within the French investigation.
Whereas Durov’s arrest has been seen as an unprecedented transfer, the platform has just lately confronted authorized scrutiny in Brazil and Germany as nicely over considerations surrounding unlawful and dangerous content material.
Telegram troubles
Whereas Telegram has argued that its content material moderation practices are “inside trade requirements and consistently bettering,” sure options of the platform have made it the middle of scrutiny globally.
By solely requiring customers to supply a cellphone quantity to register and providing the flexibility to carry end-to-end encrypted conversations via a “secret chats” function, the app affords a excessive diploma of anonymity.
These nameless options have lengthy attracted illicit actors corresponding to scammers and even extremist teams to the platform. Now, in South Korea, they’re attracting distributors of deepfake porn.
Deepfakes are movies, sounds, or pictures of an actual individual which were digitally altered and manipulated. They’ve change into more and more distinguished amid the emergence of generative AI expertise.
South Korean police are probing eight automated applications producing deepfake pornography for Telegram teams, together with chat rooms chargeable for circulating such content material, based on Yonhap’s report.
The investigations come amid elevated strain on authorities to reply to a rising variety of stories detailing how Telegram teams, some as massive as 220,000 members, have been used to share sexually exploitative deepfake pictures of feminine college students from native universities, excessive faculties, and even center faculties.
This isn’t the primary time Telegram has been on the middle of such a scandal in South Korea.
In 2020, South Korean authorities arrested a ringleader of an internet community that used Telegram to blackmail and coerce ladies and kids into sharing sexually specific pictures of themselves. No authorized motion was taken towards Telegram on the time.
In response to Durov’s arrest, Chris Beer, client and tech analyst at GWI, instructed CNBC’s “Avenue Indicators Europe” that it was unclear how far authorities could be prepared to go in regulating and cracking down on Telegram, although different messaging and social media apps may additionally come beneath scrutiny.
Beer added that there stays a rigidity between customers’ want to have their freedom of speech protected and in addition authorities oversight to protect them from dangerous content material.