The real gangsters don’t have to get their hands dirty—they have police and courts and prisons to do their dirty work for them. They don’t have to run drugs or guns or illegal gambling rings—they run everything else. They can afford to let us choose between politicians, so long as the political system itself enforces their privileges. Some of us can join their ranks if we’re enterprising enough, as long as we participate in their racket and play by their rules. Rivalries play out between different gangs, but nothing threatens gang rule. If a mafia took over our entire society, would it be any different?
The real gangsters don’t have to get their hands dirty—they have police and courts and prisons to do their dirty work for them. They don’t have to run drugs or guns or illegal gambling rings—they run everything else. They can afford to let us choose between politicians, so long as the political system itself enforces their privileges. Some of us can join their ranks if we’re enterprising enough, as long as we participate in their racket and play by their rules. Rivalries play out between different gangs, but nothing threatens gang rule. If a mafia took over our entire society, would it be any different?
At this point, however, Durov had already been working on Telegram with his brother, and further planned a mobile-first social network with an explicit focus on anti-censorship. Later in April, he told TechCrunch that he had left Russia and had “no plans to go back,” saying that the nation was currently “incompatible with internet business at the moment.” He added later that he was looking for a country that matched his libertarian ideals to base his next startup. Telegram was founded in 2013 by two Russian brothers, Nikolai and Pavel Durov. Friday’s performance was part of a larger shift. For the week, the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell 2%, 2.9%, and 3.5%, respectively. I want a secure messaging app, should I use Telegram? Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Durov wrote that Telegram was "increasingly becoming a source of unverified information," and he worried about the app being used to "incite ethnic hatred."
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