The hottest topic right now is, of course, Durov's arrest in France. We've been asked to comment as well. Well, okay.
A lot of anonymous and not so anonymous TG-channels started to discuss the arrest and invent some details that they personally heard while sitting under Macron's desk (at the minimum). For example, a bunch of anonymous people say that the girl who came to France with Durov, a specialist in consumation, turned out to be a Mossad agent (!). This was reported to them directly by Netanyahu, no doubt.
While in fact, Durov was recruited by Putin at Aliyev's dacha, so Durov would fly to France and sit in the Bastille, where Bridget Macron's false breasts are being kept in the secret cellar along with the recipe for croissants with liver sausage.... (you get the picture)
We are not supporters of the process of multiplication of entities, so we will not fantasize, but will try to make a simple analysis in order to predict the consequences of this fascinating event which may affect you and me.
We see two options - Durov is put in jail and Durov is not put in jail.
1. Durov is put in jail. In this case,
the owners and tops of social services are faced with the choice of a fork in the eye or to lie down unconditionally under the current EU authorities or to swerve out of Europe and never appear there again. Actually, Chris Pawlowski, founder of Rumble, has already done so.
A number of services are appearing that will not cooperate with the EU authorities under any pretext at all. That is, if earlier requests on pedophilia or terrorism could be worked out, now it will not happen at all, out of principle. Of course, the target contingent of unconscious citizens will immediately go there. And the European authorities will have two ways - either to put up with uncontrolled services, or to start cutting them at the level of traffic exchange points.
Our opinion is that the second way will be chosen, which means that the segmentation of the global network, which we have been talking about almost since the very beginning of the channel's existence, will become more and more obvious.
What will happen to Telegram in Russia in this case? Some kind of restrictions on messenger will be for sure, perhaps a full ban, as the probability of thermorectal cryptanalysis in French penitentiaries has not been canceled yet.
However, there is another option, in which, afraid of "European democratic values", the Telegram team will rush to Moscow and surrender to the "anal slavery by the bloody Gebna (FSB)", then everything will be fine with Telegram. And even possibly in the USA (if Trump comes to power) - they will dismantle the servers, one half of the world will be fed by the NSA and the other by the FSB. But there will probably be no Telegram left in the EU.
Ah, yes. There is also a fantastic option with the exchange of Durov for some hooligan. Or for Zhenya Berkovich.
2. Durov is not put in jail, he is fined/suspended sentence/whatever. In this case,
Telegram as an independent confidential service basically ends. No, it is clear that it will work, the audience will remain, but it will be WhatsApp N2, not an advanced platform that cares about the privacy of users. The boldness of anonymous channels will also decrease.
In parallel, a group of countries opponents of the Western liberal model - Russia, Iran, China and others - will consistently curtail the presence of Telegram on their territory. And this will not be a fake fight in the form of removing the app from the AppStore, but real blocking by protocol.
Because even if Durov doesn't hand over anything to the French security services, everyone will think that he will.
So there will probably be less Telegram in Russia in the foreseeable future. But we are not going anywhere