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Telegram chief govt Pavel Durov has spoken out for the primary time since French authorities detained and charged him on the finish of August over an alleged failure to handle felony content material on the platform.
In an extended submit on the positioning on Thursday, Durov — who faces a litany of preliminary costs associated to the corporate’s alleged lack of content material moderation insurance policies — mentioned he was stunned by the choice to pursue him as an alternative of beginning authorized proceedings in opposition to the corporate itself. If the French authorities wanted help, he mentioned, they “had quite a few methods to achieve me”.
Durov promised to make sure the platform strikes to “considerably enhance” its response to criminals utilizing its service, blaming an “abrupt enhance in consumer depend” to 950mn for “rising pains”.
However he added the corporate is “ready to depart markets that aren’t suitable with our ideas”, and criticised the French authorities for his or her “misguided strategy”.
Durov was detained at Paris-Le Bourget airport on August 24 when he arrived in France on his non-public jet from Azerbaijan, and interviewed by police over 4 days. He has been positioned underneath formal investigation by a French decide and is required to stay in French territory.
Durov, a twin French-Emirati citizen, has pitched Telegram as a web based protected haven insulated from authorities oversight. But the corporate’s hands-off strategy to content material moderation has led French prosecutors to accuse him of enabling cash laundering, drug trafficking and the distribution of kid sexual abuse.
In his submit, Durov questioned the choice to carry him personally liable for Telegram customers, saying that “if a rustic is sad with an web service, the established observe is to start out a authorized motion in opposition to the service itself”.
“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, claiming he was a “frequent visitor” on the French consulate in Dubai, the place the corporate is headquartered.
Durov mentioned he had beforehand responded to French authorities who wished to ascertain a hotline with Telegram to take care of terrorist threats. He added that “claims in some media that Telegram is a few form of anarchic paradise are completely unfaithful. We take down tens of millions of dangerous posts and channels each day.”
Durov’s case has sparked a broader debate concerning the limits of free speech on on-line platforms, with Elon Musk, the proprietor of social media platform X, hitting out at French authorities over the transfer.
