Pavel Durov, a Russian-born billionaire and the founder of Telegram, has issued public statements for the first time since his detention in France last month, denying claims that the messaging app functions as an ‘anarchic paradise’ for cybercriminal activity. Durov was arrested amid an investigation into crimes related to child sexual abuse images, drug trafficking, and fraudulent transactions associated with the app.
However, he has also pledged to overhaul the platform’s much-criticized moderation policies.
Pavel Durov’s Detention for Telegram Related Charges
Durov, who holds French citizenship, was detained in late August amid an investigation into alleged crimes on Telegram. While he managed to avoid jail time, Durov was released on a €5 million bail and ordered to report to police twice a week while remaining in France.
Durov has since then criticized the decision of the French authorities to detain him, believing that they should have approached the company with these complaints rather than charging him personally. He argues that using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform is a misguided approach.
Durov pointed out that Telegram has an official representative for the EU region to accept and reply to requests, and that the French authorities had access to a hot line he had helped set up. He believes that the established standard practice is to start a legal action against the service itself, rather than targeting the CEO.
In a lengthy statement posted to his Telegram channel early Friday, Durov acknowledged that the platform has struggled to keep pace with its rapid growth, which has reached nearly 1 billion users, making it easier for criminals to exploit its services.
While 99.999% of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001% involved in illicit activities create a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our almost billion users at risk,” Durov wrote.
Telegram’s Principles and Moderation Efforts
Despite the criminal charges he faces, Durov defended Telegram’s principles and its commitment to user privacy. He said the platform has consistently refused to comply with demands from authoritarian governments, such as when it refused to hand over encryption keys to enable surveillance in Russia, leading to a ban from the Russian government.
“We are prepared to leave markets that aren’t compatible with our principles, because we are not doing this for money,” Durov wrote. “We are driven by the intention to bring good and defend the basic rights of people, particularly in places where these rights are violated,” he added.
Durov acknowledged that Telegram is not perfect and said the platform should improve its processes for handling law enforcement requests, mentioning that the platform removes millions of harmful posts and channels every day. “We’ve already started that process internally, and I will share more details on our progress with you very soon,” he added.
He has pledged to revamp the company’s moderation policies, including removing features linked to illegal activity. The company has already taken steps to address these issues, including disabling new media uploads to its blogging tool Telegraph and removing its People Nearby feature.
Despite the challenges, Durov expressed optimism that the recent events would ultimately strengthen Telegram and the social media industry as a whole. “I hope that the events of August will result in making Telegram — and the social networking industry as a whole — safer and stronger,” he expressed.