Telegram Guy Pavel Durov's Arrest Chart Does Not Compute

Via PW Astrology: We've been told that Telegram's founder was arrested in Paris this past Saturday night. The chart for that time and place gives little to no information. Maybe we can figure out why.

Photo by Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Mercury stationed direct in Leo at 5:14 pm EDT Wednesday. My experience playing in the realms of astrology and news reporting leads me to gather the facts during the retrograde, then look for a perk in information when Mercury goes direct. I’m writing this Wednesday and Thursday so I’ll conclude with what I learned.

There was some strange news this past weekend with the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov on Saturday evening. As Durov approached Le Bourget, the private Paris airport, a warrant was issued for his arrest. When he got on the ground, we are told that he was taken into custody and later charged with a diversity of crimes related to allowing others to commit crimes on his allegedly encrypted platform.

Since all major digital platforms are host and hostess to felons, why not also lock up Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk?

According to whatever data is available, Telegram is not even among the top 10 offenders. This issue should be a REALLY big deal. It’s the first time anyone whose company owns a platform is being held personally liable for what the users post.

Meanwhile, this kind of thing always sets off a free-speech panic, complete with 25,000 podcasts about your rights and all of that. It’s perfectly predictable. They’re coming for you next. Telegram users, depending on what they are doing, are likely to be concerned that they might get caught in an international dragnet. Many are deleting their content and/or accounts, or so I hear.

Under full digital conditions, speech has never been more free, or less.

Paris’s oldest airport no longer serves commercial airlines.

My Personal Impression of Telegram

Before I say a little about the chart for the supposed arrest, I want to share my impression of Telegram. The company is based in Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates. Personally, I was never drawn to the platform. You would think it’s perfect for the spooky side of my profession, but I find it repelling. Plus, I generally don’t use phone apps for any real work (hence, my lack of a meaningful presence on Instagram).

I’m not interested in the latest trend in online communication, which always seems to be a more complicated rehashing of email and SMS. I don’t care if all the cool kids are trying out the next great thing. I’m perfectly happy with my 1958 Hula Hoop. I still have cutting mats on all of my desks. I ride a pony to work every day. I bake my own bread and churn my own butter.

The desktop version of Telegram to me seems both ugly and incomprehensible. Your old Uncle Eric is a little dim, I admit, but I should be able to figure out how to find my way around an app that a billion people use. Staring at the screen wondering how to make it work for Planet Waves approximately 100 times, I decided there was no meeting between us and it.

Then every time someone sent me to Telegram for some Big Thing that would utterly thrill me, I practically fell asleep at the keyboard.