Updated 15:35 IST, September 6th 2024
Telegram's Pavel Durov defends himself against French charges in first public comments after arrest
Pavel Durov accused the authorities of taking a “misguided approach” to the situation, but Telegram announced major changes to its policy quietly.
![Pavel Durov arrest update](https://www.republicbiz.com/_app/immutable/assets/16-9-placeholder.ylpwvwO6.jpg)
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov promised to step up efforts to fight criminality on the messaging app, his first public comments since French authorities handed him preliminary charges for allegedly allowing the platform’s use for criminal activity. In a Telegram post late Thursday, Durov defended himself against the French judicial investigation, suggesting that he should not have been targeted personally.
“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,” the post said. “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.”
While insisting that Telegram is not “some sort of anarchic paradise,” Durov said surging numbers of Telegram users “caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform.” “That’s why I made it my personal goal to ensure we significantly improve things in this regard. We’ve already started that process internally, and I will share more details on our progress with you very soon,” he said.
French police arrested Durov last month from an airport outside of France over his platform's involvement in promoting illegal activities, such as child trafficking, child abuse, and extortion, among others. Following his arrest, the Indian government launched a probe into Telegram's operations in India over its misuse in gambling and extortion.
Durov accused the authorities of taking a “misguided approach” to the situation, but Telegram, which has over 1 billion monthly active users, has made a significant changes to policy, enabling users to report private chats to moderators. The company said this would help curb content related to illegal activities – which the platform has been accused of promoting. Telegram said it will also allow users to send posts directly to an email address for automatic takedown where they can include links to questionable posts for moderators to immediately attend to.
Written with inputs from Associated Press
Published 15:35 IST, September 6th 2024