Telegram CEO defends himself against French charges in first public comments

Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov promised to step up efforts to fight criminality on the messaging app, his first public comments since French authorities handed him preliminary charges for allegedly allowing the platform’s use for criminal activity.

In a Telegram post late Thursday, Durov defended himself against the French judicial investigation, suggesting that he shouldn’t have been targeted 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 post said. “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.”

While insisting that Telegram is not “some sort of anarchic paradise,” Durov said surging numbers of Telegram users “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 said.

French investigators detained Durov at Le Bourget airport outside Paris in late August and questioned him for four days as part of a sweeping probe opened earlier this year. Released on 5 million euros bail, Durov has to report to a police station twice a week. Russia-born, he has amassed multiple citizenships, including French.

French allegations against Durov include that Telegram is used for child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking, and that the platform refused to share information or documents with investigators when required by law.

In his post, Durov said that while 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 said Telegram has an official representative in the European Union who replies to EU requests, with a public email address.

Telegram’s website informs users that they can contact the app through a bot and includes a link to report illegal content. It also includes an email address and phone number for “competent authorities of the EU and EU members” to use. “If you are not a competent EU or EU member authority, your request will not be processed,” it says.

In his post, Durov said “French authorities had numerous ways to reach me to request assistance.” He said he also had previously worked 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 said.