Geopolitics
The study of how factors such as geography, economics, military capability and non-State actors affects the foreign policy of states.
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Do you think that the arrest of the Telegram CEO was justified? Just curious.
Is Telegram at least better than most comms out there?
I don't think it's justified, for various reasons- first there's the blatant hypocrisy and double standards, then there's that holding a platform responsible for everything done on it is also ridiculous- and what they were asking from Telegram is honestly IMO even "worse" than what China and Russia does (not that I think Chinese or even Russian control/censorship is necessarily bad- and I agree with the necessity of such controls for any sovereign state), as they are trying to impose backdoors, discretely, on a global platform, rather than simply being open about it and keeping it within their own borders.
That said, from what little I do know of Durov- he strikes me as having been at least a bit of a smug liberal shitlord before, who was basking in the praise of the west over squabbles with the Russian govt. over much, much lesser things, to my understanding. I can't say it's not at least a bit funny/ironic- unjustified as it may be for many reasons (hypocrisy and secondary motives, typical western posturing their laws to have some sort of global suzerainty, blatant attempts at expanding the surveillance/propaganda state with this likely being particularly motivated by trying to crack down on coverage of the genocide in Gaza). He thought he was living it up in the "free" west, but then it turned out that the "enlightened garden" was actually worse and more demanding and tyrannical than Russia (or China for that matter- China wouldn't have been demanding he crackdown on users outside the Great Firewall, or demanding he add a backdoor) would ever have been...
Past that, the Durov "arrest" (kidnapping as I see it- they did it to get leverage on his brother I assume, he himself can't even give them what they are asking, he's just a hostage) holds many similarities with that of Meng Wanzhou's, tbh. The US is trying to maintain a monopoly (that is primarily challenged by TikTok and Telegram), and they're kidnapping people to do it.
And a "rival" bourgeois, no less.
Yes, well, Meng Wanzhou was able to get free; wondering if Durov has more of a chance than she did, given that she was able to be exonerated and leave, correct me if I'm wrong.