PARIS: Telegram founder and chief executive Pavel Durov on Thursday (Sep 5) hit out at France for arresting and charging him final month over the publication of extremist and unlawful content material on the favored messaging app.
In a prolonged publish on Telegram, his first remark since his arrest, Durov mentioned it was “stunning” he was being held accountable for different individuals’s content material.
“Utilizing legal guidelines from the pre-smartphone period to cost a CEO with crimes dedicated by third events on the platform he manages is a misguided strategy,” he mentioned.
He additionally lashed out at claims that “Telegram is a few type of anarchic paradise” as “completely unfaithful”, insisting: “We take down tens of millions of dangerous posts and channels day by day.”
He denied accusations from France that Paris had not obtained responses from Telegram to its requests, saying he had personally helped French authorities “set up a hotline with Telegram to cope with the specter of terrorism in France”.
“GROWING PAINS”
However hanging a extra conciliatory tone on the finish of his message, Durov mentioned Telegram’s hovering person numbers – which he now put at 950 million worldwide – “triggered rising pains that made it simpler for criminals to abuse our platform”.
“That is why I made it my private objective to make sure we considerably enhance issues on this regard,” he mentioned, including that this was being labored out “internally” and extra particulars can be shared sooner or later.
“I hope that the occasions of August will end in making Telegram – and the social networking business as an entire – safer and stronger.”
He mentioned that when Telegram couldn’t agree on the “proper steadiness between privateness and safety” with native regulators then “we’re prepared to depart that nation”.
