There's an intriguing moral paradox in Pavel's arrest, and it is, to me, all about ownership.

Car manufacturers aren't arrested because criminals use their car. However, Pavel was arrested because criminals used his app.

I see a lot of people, including me, feeling bitter about this arrest and worried about what it means for their personal privacy and freedom.

Yet, it's widely considered immoral to remain passive when one has the direct ability to prevent immoral actions, especially serious offenses like child exploitation.

If Telegram's technology had been decentralized to the point where Pavel clearly couldn't influence what was happening on the platform, it's unlikely anyone would attempt to arrest him or accuse him of anything.

Why? ... 1/2

Co-founder & CEO at @morpho labs. Making financial infrastructure a public good.

The owner is the one accountable, and Telegram still retains ownership of our conversations.
(Disclaimer: While I'm not familiar with the technical details, it appears that the platform is highly centralized.)

One owns its car, but one doesn’t (yet) own its conversations.

IMO, true freedom of speech can only be achieved through genuinely decentralized protocols where the speech is "owned" by the users. 

I'm optimistic that 1- we can address this issue in the coming years and 2- this progress should ensure that no one ever questions the accountability of builders again, just as no one questions those who developed HTTP, RSS, etc.

(bullish farcaster)

2/2

Yeah this is a great point... i don't know the details of the tornado story, but if it was fully decentralized and still they arrested him, then it is a fair counterargument to my post ^^

> If Telegram's technology had been decentralized to the point where Pavel clearly couldn't influence what was happening on the platform, it's unlikely anyone would attempt to arrest him or accuse him of anything.

that didn't help tornadocash devs, did it?

growth @teller coming soon @clarity





























































hosting /kieran /usdc /loans 

Morale of the story: Europe is a police state

building /anser https://anser.social | prev. Ledger

>BTW, modern car manufacturers do help the police tracking criminals.
interesting i did not know.

I guess "ownership" is not black or white. As soon as you have a form of control, people will push you to use it to trace back criminal activities

He was not arrested because criminals used his platform. He was arrested because he refused to help the police identify criminals when he could. Child abusers.
It appears that he got his French passport helping the same police identify terrorists.
Weird double standards IMO.
BTW, modern car manufacturers do help the police tracking criminals.

Dad, geek, conversation liquidity provider. vrypan.net (home), /weatherxm (work), @l--o--l (fun). Also https://paragraph.xyz/@purplesubmarine

good question, i am not sure.

I guess operators would have to comply with their local law? ideally, they let people run unopinionated nodes

Great analysis. The question is, if the service was decentralized, could all operators be held accountable for participating? For rejecting a protocol proposal that would introduce KYC or moderation?

politics

I feel like it's the right time to open up this debate. Could live in the /philosophy channel too, but feels timely here with Durov's arrest:

Does free speech exist only if there's zero limit to it?

I tend to say no, just as regular freedom is not about being able to kill anyone when you want. Words, when they're pronounced especially by individuals with influence, can have very concrete consequences in the real word. People saying these words should be ready to be held accountable for the consequences of their words, including being ready to go to prison.

In the case of Durov, I would say that his mistake was to not build Telegram as a decentralized entity from the get go. If there's no one that can monitor the content of an app, then the authorities can only go after each individuals, but if there's a central entity allowing illegal activities and turning a blind eye, to me, it's only normal they have to be held accountable as well.

Very accurate take. Basically said the same thing in the /politics channel.
One consequence of this position though is that as a community in decentralized spaces, we also should come up with some kind of guidelines we enfore as a decentralized community.

Very accurate take. Basically said the same thing in the /politics channel.
One consequence of this position though is that as a community in decentralized spaces, we also should come up with some kind of guidelines we enfore as a decentralized community.

https://warpcast.com/alixkun/0xf37afef1

He was arrested because neutralizing telegram implodes Russian field communications 🤣

Telegram’s patch notes included a lot of dog whistles though. Someone involved knew about and was encouraging criminal activity. I def understand the leeriness about the arrest though.

Ross Ulbricht ** 2 

from what I know of it.

P.S.: I don't see gun manufacturers being arested...