PARIS (AP) — Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov promised to step up efforts to struggle criminality on the messaging app, his first public feedback since French authorities handed him preliminary fees for allegedly permitting the platform’s use for legal exercise.
In a Telegram put up late Thursday, Durov defended himself towards the French judicial investigation, suggesting that he shouldn’t have been focused 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 put up mentioned. “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.”
Whereas insisting that Telegram shouldn’t be “some sort of anarchic paradise,” Durov mentioned surging numbers of Telegram customers “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 mentioned.
French investigators detained Durov at Le Bourget airport exterior Paris in late August and questioned him for 4 days as a part of a sweeping probe opened earlier this yr.
Launched on 5 million euros bail, Durov has to report back to a police station twice every week. Russia-born, he has amassed a number of citizenships, together with French.
French allegations towards Durov embrace that Telegram is used for baby sexual abuse materials and drug trafficking, and that the platform refused to share info or paperwork with investigators when required by legislation.
In his put up, Durov mentioned that whereas in police detention, “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.”
“This was surprising for several reasons,” he added.
He mentioned Telegram has an official consultant within the European Union who replies to EU requests, with a public e-mail handle.
Telegram’s web site informs customers that they’ll contact the app by means of a bot and features a hyperlink to report unlawful content material. It additionally contains an e-mail handle and telephone quantity for “competent authorities of the EU and EU members” to make use of. “If you are not a competent EU or EU member authority, your request will not be processed,” it says.
In his put up, Durov mentioned “French authorities had numerous ways to reach me to request assistance.” He mentioned he additionally had beforehand labored with them to “establish a hotline with Telegram to deal with the threat of terrorism in France.”
“If a country is unhappy with an internet service, the established practice is to start a legal action against the service itself,” he mentioned.
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