Pavel Durov, Telegram’s chief executive officer (CEO), has said it will become harder for criminals to use the platform. He said this in a statement detailing his ordeals in France following his arrest at Le Bourget Airport in Paris.
Durov was arrested under a warrant connected to Telegram’s alleged failure to moderate content. He is being investigated for several serious offences, including accusations that his platform has been used by fraudsters, drug traffickers, and those distributing child pornography.
“We take down millions of harmful posts and channels every day. We publish daily transparency reports (like this or this). We have direct hotlines with NGOs to process urgent moderation requests faster,” he disclosed while addressing claims that the platform was being used by criminals.
The Telegram CEO further described his arrest and accusation as following a ‘misguided approach.’
“Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a misguided approach,” Durov said.
Durov, the Russian-born founder of Telegram, was detained on August 24, 2024, upon arriving in France. His arrest came amid an investigation by French authorities into Telegram’s alleged lack of content moderation, which they claim has facilitated criminal activities on the platform.
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He expressed surprise at his arrest, noting different reasons. He stated, “Telegram has an official representative in the EU that accepts and replies to EU requests. Its email address has been publicly available for anyone in the EU who googles “Telegram EU address for law enforcement.”
He added that the French authorities had numerous ways to reach him to request assistance.
“As a French citizen, I was a frequent guest at the French consulate in Dubai. A while ago, when asked, I personally helped them establish a hotline with Telegram to deal with the threat of terrorism in France.”
Durov noted that the right measure was to build a legal action against the service. “If a country is unhappy with an internet service, the established practice is to start a legal action against the service itself.
“Building technology is hard enough as it is. No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools,” he added.
Durov critiqued the concept of a CEO being held accountable for third-party misuse of their platform. He pointed out that Telegram has a history of resisting government demands that conflict with its principles, such as blocking channels in Russia and Iran.
“Sometimes we can’t agree with a country’s regulator on the right balance between privacy and security. In those cases, we are ready to leave that country. We’ve done it many times. When Russia demanded we hand over “encryption keys” to enable surveillance, we refused and Telegram got banned in Russia. When Iran demanded we block channels of peaceful protesters, we refused, and Telegram got banned in Iran,” he said.
He noted that Telegram is ready to move away from markets incompatible with the platform’s principles. “We are prepared to leave markets that aren’t compatible with our principles because we are not doing this for money. We are driven by the intention to bring good and defend the basic rights of people, particularly in places where these rights are violated,” the CEO stated.
He concluded by noting that he has made it a personal goal to ensure that things are significantly improved as regards the invasion of criminals on the platform. He added, “We’ve already started that process internally, and I will share more details on our progress with you very soon.”
