Last Updated on 06/09/2024 by Arun jain
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov He made his first public statement on Thursday after being detained by French authorities last month.
In a lengthy post published on his Telegram channel, Durov said his arrest came as a surprise to him.
“I was interviewed by the police for 4 days after arriving in Paris last month. “I was told that I could be personally responsible for the illegal use of Telegram by others, because the French authorities had not received a response from Telegram,” Durov wrote.
But officials, Durov said, could have contacted Telegram for assistance if they had wanted to.
“Telegram has an official representative in the EU that accepts and responds to EU requests,” he wrote, adding that it also helped French authorities “establish a hotline with Telegram to combat the threat of terrorism in France.”
I am still trying to understand what happened in France. But we hear the concerns. I have made it my personal goal to prevent abusers of Telegram’s platform from interfering with the future of our 950+ million users. My full post below. https://t.co/cDvRSodjst
— Pavel Durov (@Durov) September 5, 2024
Durov was Arrested by French police On August 24, he reached Paris in his private jet.
was assigned to an entrepreneur of Russian origin Initial charges A few days later, on 28 August. Durov was accused of distributing child sexual abuse material on Telegram and being involved in drug trafficking.
Durov, who obtained French citizenship in 2021, has since been released from custody, although he is not allowed to leave France.
“If a country is unhappy with an Internet service, the established practice is to initiate legal action against the service itself,” Durov wrote Thursday.
“Using the laws of the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platforms he manages is a misguided approach. Building technology is as difficult as it is.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said on August 26 that Durov’s arrest was “in no way a political decision.”
I have seen false information regarding France after the arrest of Pavel Durov. France is deeply committed to freedom of expression and communication, innovation and the spirit of entrepreneurship. It will be the same. In a state governed by the rule of law,…
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) August 26, 2024
“Telegram’s president was arrested on French territory as part of an ongoing judicial investigation. This is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to decide,” Macron wrote in an X post.
Telegram, Durov said, recognizes the challenge of balancing privacy with security and is “engaging with regulators to find the right balance.”
“Sometimes we cannot agree with the country’s regulator on the right balance between privacy and security. In those cases, we are ready to leave that country,” he wrote, adding that Telegram was banned in Russia and Iran after they refused to comply with local authorities.
Telegram wasn’t perfect by any means but it was definitely “not an anarchic paradise,” Durov said on his channel.
“Telegram’s sudden surge of users to 950M caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform. That is why I have made it my personal goal to ensure that we improve this matter significantly,” he wrote in his post, adding that more details would be shared soon.
“Thanks again for your love and memes,” Durov added.
Telegram representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.
Post Telegram CEO breaks silence after arrest, says it’s not true that the platform is an ‘anarchic paradise’ appeared first Business Insider.