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Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has shared a statement on his arrest, calling his four-day detention in France "surprising" and arguing that he should not be held personally accountable for Telegram's policies, approach, or user behavior. The executive defended Telegram's existing methods, but also acknowledged that the platform could improve in some areas in a lengthy post on Thursday.
French authorities began investigating Durov earlier this year and arrested him when his private jet landed in France last month for questioning. Authorities shared that they were considering a dozen different potential charges, many of which were related to complicity around criminal activity such as narcotics and child pornography. All of the charges were formally pressed on August 28 and Durov was subsequently released on bail, which was set at $5.6 million. Durov is not allowed to leave France, and is required to report to a police station twice a week, according to a release from French authorities shared with PCMag.
For years, Telegram has been criticized for hosting a range of illegal and violent content, from child porn to brutal violence, hacking groups, and malware for sale. But Durov, unsurprisingly, doesn't see his app as a safe harbor for such content. "The claims in some media that Telegram is some sort of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue. We take down millions of harmful posts and channels every day," Durov said, adding that the app publishes transparency reports and has hotlines for NGOs as well as contact emails for law enforcement.
But social media apps face seemingly endless waves of criminals, scammers, and bots, and have to try to stay one step ahead to stop their platforms from being overwhelmed. Durov admitted that it's been difficult and that Telegram isn't doing everything it can to make its app safer. "Telegram’s abrupt increase in user count to 950 million caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform," Durov said, adding that the company is working on improving its approach to tackling criminal activity on the app and will share its plans "very soon."
Ultimately, Durov emphasized that Telegram isn't an app that will bow down to any country's government, especially if it calls for surveillance methods, backdoors into the app, or for Telegram to restrict users' channels for political reasons. Telegram typically removes its app from being available in countries where it isn't able to resolve an issue with regulators, and previously pulled it from Russia and Iran.
"Sometimes we can’t agree with a country’s regulator on the right balance between privacy and security. In those cases, we are ready to leave that country," Durov said.