French authorities announced preliminary charges against Telegram CEO Pavel Durov for allegedly enabling criminal activities on his messaging app. He was ordered to pay €5 million bail and barred from leaving France while the probe continues.
Sputnik reached out to international experts to ask if social media bosses should be held personally responsible for what happens on their apps.
Zach Vorhies, a former senior software engineer at YouTube and Google turned whistleblower, believes that «in an era where a digital footprint can directly lead to a jail cell, the concept of ‘privacy by design’ becomes not just a best practice but a moral imperative.«
He stressed that «if tech companies continue to acquiesce to government demands that undermine user privacy, we may be witnessing the end of digital anonymity as we know it.»
Ryan Hartwig, Facebook whistleblower and co-author of Behind the Mask of Facebook said: «No, social media owners shouldn’t be responsible for what is on their platform, unless they are aware of illegal activity and do nothing to stop it or report it.»
«A dictatorship can declare political activity illegal, thus instantly turning millions of political posts into ‘illegal content’,» Hartwig said.
Philip Giraldi, Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest and former CIA field officer, said it was clear that «if free speech is the standard there should be no such responsibility as the actual poster is the one who should be responsible for the content if it is criminal in nature.»
«To behave otherwise would require a massive censorship presence as well as detailed rules about what is acceptable, which would defeat the purpose of having free speech online,» he said.
