Messaging app Telegram has stated its CEO Pavel Durov, who was detained in France on Saturday, has “nothing to cover”.
Mr Durov was arrested at an airport north of Paris underneath a warrant for offences associated to the app, in response to officers.
The investigation is reportedly about inadequate moderation, with Mr Durov accused of failing to take steps to curb legal makes use of of Telegram. The app is accused of failure to co-operate with regulation enforcement over drug trafficking, youngster sexual content material and fraud.
Telegram stated in a press release that “its moderation is inside business requirements and continually enhancing”.
“It’s absurd to assert {that a} platform or its proprietor are chargeable for abuse of that platform,” the app stated.
Telegram stated Mr Durov travels in Europe steadily and added that it abides by European Union legal guidelines, together with the Digital Services Act, which goals to make sure a protected and accountable on-line setting.
“Nearly a billion customers globally use Telegram as technique of communication and as a supply of significant data,” the app’s assertion learn.
“We’re awaiting a immediate decision of this example. Telegram is with you all.”
Judicial sources quoted by AFP information company say Mr Durov’s detention was prolonged on Sunday and will final so long as 96 hours.
Pavel Durov, 39, was born in Russia and now lives in Dubai, the place Telegram relies. He holds citizenship of the United Arab Emirates and France.
Telegram is especially standard in Russia, Ukraine and former Soviet Union states.
The app was banned in Russia in 2018, after a earlier refusal by him handy over person information. The ban was reversed in 2021.
Telegram is ranked as one of many main social media platforms after Fb, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and Wechat.
Mr Durov based Telegram in 2013. He left Russia in 2014 after refusing to adjust to authorities calls for to close down opposition communities on his VKontakte social media platform, which he bought.
Russia nonetheless regards Mr Durov as a Russian citizen. Its overseas ministry stated the Russian embassy to France had “instantly taken the steps required in such instances to make clear the scenario across the Russian citizen, regardless of not having obtained a request from the businessman’s representatives”.
Then embassy itself stated it was searching for to “make clear the explanations for the detention and to offer for the safety of Mr Durov’s rights and facilitate consular entry”.
It added that the French authorities had not been co-operating with Russian officers.
Russian overseas ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova posted on Telegram asking whether or not Western human rights NGOs could be silent on Mr Durov’s arrest, after they criticised Russia’s determination to “create obstacles” to the work of Telegram in Russia in 2018.
Telegram permits teams of as much as 200,000 members, which critics have argued makes it simpler for misinformation to unfold, and for customers to share conspiracist, neo-Nazi, paedophilic, or terror-related content material.
Within the UK, the app was scrutinised for internet hosting far-right channels that had been instrumental in organising the violent dysfunction in English cities earlier this month.
Telegram did take away some teams, however total its system of moderating extremist and unlawful content material is considerably weaker than that of different social media firms and messenger apps, say cybersecurity specialists.
