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The Durov case and many other reasons are why companies avoid basing themselves in France. No Social Media platform will seek to headquarter in Paris. It’s unthinkable. And the French government can’t go after Andrew Torba who runs GAB because he’s an American operating GAB in America. If GAB launches end to end encrypted chat or anything the Z French government doesn’t like, there’s nothing they can do about it. The solution to “government overreach” is not building systems that can’t be cracked or stopped; they’re persecuting Durov without any proper cause. If your name is associated with a tool that the French government can’t stop or crack or track, they will come after you. This isn’t about right and wrong, following rules or logic. This is not about technical capabilities or clever architecture, “frenz”; this is about computer illiterate tyrants who can’t understand detail or scale or ethics, and if they can, don’t care, because they want to sacrifice Durov to scare everyone. The next iteration in this is to criminalise the authoring and distribution of unlicensed privacy software. The first part, distribution, will stop ordinary people from accessing Telegram or any tool that keeps messages private. This is easily done through Google Play and the Apple App Store. The second will totally dry up the developer pool of people working on privacy software, because none of them want any trouble. Oh, and GitHub will ban your repo, frenz. Before you write “Hello World” in your new tool, you will need to have a Developer’s License before starting work, even in the conceptual stage. It will be illegal for you to share any design, algorithm or outline without both you and the idea recipient having a current Crypto Software Development License. If you think this is completely impossible, please see Bernstein v. US Department of Justice https://medium.com/swlh/why-america-cant-regulate-bitcoin-8c77cee8d794 The answer to this is not “build your way out of it”, obviously. The answer is to first curb the power of the state to persecute software development and distribution before you write “Hello World”. You do that by making the State smaller. You make the state smaller by instantiating sound money. That means globalising Bitcoin. And how do you “globalise Bitcoin?” 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1….. And in case you didn’t know, rote recitation of catchphrases and infantile feel good gibberish will not stop the persecution of Durov, remove KYC in Bitcoin or stop the emergence of Crypto Developer Licensing.
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Pavel Durov (@durov) on X
One year ago, the French police detained me for 4 days because some people I’d never heard of used Telegram to coordinate crimes. Arresting a CEO...

Replies (16)

🛡️
Spot on! 💯 Further to that the comunistas running France (as well as most of the western world) are able to easily choke centralised entities within their borders, thanks to corrupt legislatures and judicial institutions. The tools already exist to reimagine “company structures” in the 21st century; for example where a Delaware c-corp was needed to do business, cryptographic keys + BTC become the new standard. That way no state will be made further irrelevant, as one will be able to trade permissionlessly and free themselves from the tech illiterate tyrants who think cyberspace recognizes physical borders. Those that consider this too radical an approach can still do things the old fashioned way in “business friendly regions” of the world where the encroachment of tyranny is happening at a slower pace.
↩ replying to TheGrinder
This is the “hoodie anon, hideaway culture”. People should not have to hide their identities in order to swipe software. Human collaboration in person and in the open should not suffer because the State doesn’t like the code you write. Having your name associated with the tools you write is not about “recognition” it’s about free association in a free country.
↩ replying to TheGrinder
I’m saying throwing away recognition won’t solve the problem. Software developers don’t do it for nebulous “recognition” they do it to solve problems. Hiding away won’t solve anything; it’s hiding, it’s running away from the problem, it’s being a coward and refusing to solve a problem head on. What’s worse is having the means to help solve these problems and then refusing to act. That’s why the world is teetering on tyranny.