I would argue that Bush was more criminal than all others combined. He was a mass-murderer.

Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill is a mass murderer who killed millions in India.

Many rich asian countries were dictatorships before they got rich. Once people enjoy a prosperous economy, they start asking for democracy and human rights. But not before.

Japan, South Korea, Taiwan all went the same route.

Chatbots are just the next stage of evolution in search engines.

AI is awesome! Don’t let the luddites convince you otherwise.

does your supermarket accept payments in Monero?

No. Privacy is illegal in the banking/financial system.

You are the one making up a fantasy scenario to satisfy your authotarian urges.

Dis you miss the entire Snowden revelations? Western governments are hostile to online privacy and freedom.

This is the standard excuse for authoritarian governments. Use a crime category no one can object to.

ANYONE who understood how telegram works and also felt it was a tool for privacy doesn’t really understand privacy in the digital age.

Telegram is the most realistic alternative to breaking Meta’s monopoly. You might like Signal very much, but nobody uses it and the user experience is horrible.

there are plenty of clear cut examples of where telegram should shut down channels - CSAM etc… that’s what this arrest was about; the rest is academic

Was it? The French authorities did not provide any convincing evidence, just accusations.

This is pure nonsense.

Western governments hate Telegram because until now Telegram didn’t cooperate with Western intelligence services like American social media companies do. Everything on Meta or Google gets fed into NSA, but Telegram has been uncooperative.

This will likely change after Durov’s arrest, but it was nice while it lasted.

which still use Google services.

Russia tried for years to ban Telegram. They stopped after Telegram managed to keep itself alive by proxies.

Free speech is good. Government regulated speech is bad.

Well, except Telegram isn’t a good tool for privacy.

If Telegram wasn’t good for privacy, Western government would not be trying to shut it down.

E2EE is nice, but doesn’t matter if the government can just sieze or hack your phone. Much better to use non-Western social media and messaging apps.

They also allow known criminal activity to thrive.

Most scammers I have seen are operating out of Facebook or Instagram.

I know Telegram is good, because every Western government is trying to shut it down.

Governments want to make it illegal to have privacy. Durov’s arrest was one of the many steps they are taking in that direction.