PARIS: Telegram founder and chief executive Pavel Durov on Thursday (Sep 5) hit out at France for arresting and charging him final month over the publication of extremist and unlawful content material on the favored messaging app.
In a prolonged put up on Telegram, his first remark since his arrest, Durov stated it was “stunning” he was being held liable for different individuals’s content material.
“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 method,” he stated.
He additionally lashed out at claims that “Telegram is a few type of anarchic paradise” as “completely unfaithful”, insisting: “We take down thousands and thousands of dangerous posts and channels each day.”
He denied accusations from France that Paris had not obtained responses from Telegram to its requests, saying he had personally helped French authorities “set up a hotline with Telegram to take care of the specter of terrorism in France”.
“GROWING PAINS”
However putting a extra conciliatory tone on the finish of his message, Durov stated Telegram’s hovering consumer numbers – which he now put at 950 million worldwide – “prompted rising pains that made it simpler for criminals to abuse our platform”.
“That is why I made it my private objective to make sure we considerably enhance issues on this regard,” he stated, including that this was being labored out “internally” and extra particulars could be shared sooner or later.
“I hope that the occasions of August will end in making Telegram – and the social networking business as a complete – safer and stronger.”
He stated that when Telegram couldn’t agree on the “proper steadiness between privateness and safety” with native regulators then “we’re prepared to depart that nation”.