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The founder and CEO of the social media and messaging service Telegram says his arrest last week by French authorities was “misguided” and allegations are “absolutely untrue.”
Pavel Durov was arrested on August 25 after he landed in Paris, with a formal investigation having been launched on Wednesday (August 28).
The businessman faces charges in France for running an app which allegedly is complicit in illegal activities including child abuse, drug trafficking, and fraud.
This follows a probe in February 2024 by French authorities who claim the company didn’t cooperate with previous criminal investigations.
In his first public statement since the arrest, Durov took to his own platform to share his thoughts.
“Last month I got interviewed by police for four days after arriving in Paris. I was told I may be personally responsible for other people’s illegal use of Telegram because the French authorities didn’t receive responses from Telegram.”
The Russian businessman goes on to say he found this surprising for several reasons, including that “Telegram has an official representative in the EU that accepts and replies to EU requests.”
Going beyond that, Durov says the authorities have had “numerous ways” to reach him to request assistance and states that he is a frequent guest at the French consulate in Dubai.
“If a country is unhappy with an internet service, the established practice is to start a legal action against the service itself. 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.
“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.”
Telegram founder wants to “significantly improve things”
With attention on Telegram at an all-time high since the arrest, Durov says the “claims in some media” are “absolutely untrue.
“We take down millions of harmful posts and channels every day. We publish daily transparency reports. We have direct hotlines with NGOs to process urgent moderation requests faster.”
The founder does say that he hears the voices who say it’s not enough. “Telegram’s abrupt increase in user count to 950M 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.”
Featured Image: Via TechCrunch on Flickr
