Telegram CEO Pavel Durov at the World Action Conference in Barcelona, Spain, Tuesday, February 23, 2016.
Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The boss of messaging platform Telegram said late Thursday that France’s charges against him were “misleading”, his first public comments since he was detained in the country nearly two weeks ago.
Pavel Durov, who founded Telegram in 2013, was charged last week with criminal activity on the messaging app, including distributing child pornography, drug trafficking and fraud, as well as refusing to share information with authorities.
One of the charges is conspiracy to manage an online platform for illegal trading within an organized gang, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of 500,000 euros ($555,833) if found guilty after trial.
Durov has been in France since his arrest on August 24. He has paid a bail of 5 million euros and is still under judicial supervision. Prosecutors said last week that he cannot leave French territory and must report to a police station twice a week.
In his first public comments on the matter on Thursday, Durov said France’s decision to detain and charge him was based on a “wrong approach.”
“If a country is dissatisfied with an online service, it is common practice to initiate legal action against the service itself,” Telegram’s CEO and founder said in a statement posted on his Telegram account.
“It is misleading to use laws that predate the smartphone era to accuse a CEO of committing third-party crimes on the platform he manages.”
“Building technology is difficult enough on its own. Innovators will never build new tools if they know they could be personally responsible for the potential misuse of those tools,” he added.
Durov said that after arriving in Paris from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, last month, he was questioned by French police for four days.
“I was told that I could be personally responsible for other people’s illegal use of Telegram because the French authorities had not received a response from Telegram,” he said, adding that this was “surprising” because Telegram has an official in the EU. Official representative to accept and respond to requests.
The founder of the social media platform said that the platform has cooperated with French authorities to “establish a hotline with Telegram to deal with the terrorist threat in France.” Durov, a citizen of the United Arab Emirates, added that he was “a regular visitor to the French consulate in Dubai”.
Before Durov arrived in France, there was speculation that he would meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Azerbaijan.
However, the Kremlin’s official spokesman tell the bbc The meeting never took place last week.
According to Forbes, the 39-year-old Russian-born billionaire has a net worth of approximately $15.5 billion, making him the 121st richest person in the world.
The Telegram platform he co-founded is often promoted as an uncensored and neutral platform.
But the approach has caused controversy over the app, with many governments expressing concern That Telegram lacks adequate content moderation controls to detect and remove illegal content.
Telegram is particularly popular in authoritarian regimes where access to online platforms is severely restricted. It is also known for being used by fraud gangs, drug traffickers and even designated terrorist groups, who have previously used the service to claim responsibility for attacks.
Telegram defended its moderation practices, saying last week that they were “in line with industry standards and continually improving.”
Thank you all for your support and love!
Last month, I was questioned by the police for four days after arriving in Paris. I was told that I could be personally responsible for someone else’s illegal use of Telegram because the French authorities had not heard back from Telegram.
- Telegram has an official representative in the EU who is responsible for receiving and responding to EU requests. Its email address is public and available to anyone in the EU who searches Google for “Telegram EU law enforcement addresses.”
- There are various ways in which the French authorities can contact me to request assistance. As a French citizen, I am a regular visitor to the French Consulate in Dubai. Not long ago, upon request, I personally helped them set up a hotline with Telegram to deal with the terrorist threat in France.
- If a country is dissatisfied with an online service, the common practice is to initiate legal action against the service itself. It is misleading to use laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with third-party crimes committed on the platforms he manages. Building technology is hard enough on its own. Innovators would not develop new tools if they knew they could be personally responsible for their potential misuse.
Establishing the right balance between privacy and security is not easy. You must align privacy laws with law enforcement requirements and local laws with EU law. You have to consider technical limitations. As a platform, you want your processes to be consistent globally while ensuring they are not abused in countries with weak rule of law. We remain committed to working with regulators to find the right balance. Yes, we stand by our principles: our experience is shaped by our mission to protect users in authoritarian regimes. But we’re always open to dialogue.
Sometimes we are unable to reach agreement with a country’s regulator on the appropriate balance between privacy and security. In this case, we are ready to leave that country. We’ve done it many times. When Russia asked us to hand over our “encryption keys” for surveillance, we refused and Telegram was banned in Russia. When Iran asked us to block access to peaceful protesters, we refused – Telegram is banned in Iran. We are prepared to leave markets that do not align with our principles because we are not doing it for the money. We are driven by delivering benefits to people and defending their fundamental rights, especially where these rights are violated.
None of this means Telegram is perfect. Even the fact that authorities may be confused about where to send requests is something we should improve on. But the claims made by some media outlets that Telegram is some kind of anarchist paradise are absolutely untrue. We remove millions of harmful posts and channels every day. We publish daily transparency reports (e.g. this or this ). We have established a direct hotline with NGOs to handle urgent review requests more quickly.
However, we hear some voices saying that this is not enough. Telegram’s sudden increase in user numbers to 950 million has created growing pains for criminals, making it easier for them to abuse our platform. That’s why I’ve made it my personal goal to ensure we make significant improvements in this area. We have started this process internally and I will share more details about our progress with you soon.
I hope the events of August will make Telegram and the entire social networking industry safer and stronger. Thank you again for your love and memes
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