Pavel Durov, founder of the messaging app Telegram, which is under investigation in France, said French authorities should have taken their complaints to the company instead of detaining him and called the arrest “misguided.”
In comments posted on his Telegram channel early on Friday, his first since being detained last month, Durov rejected suggestions the app was an “anarchist haven.”
The Russian-born billionaire said the investigation into the app was surprising in that French authorities had access to a “hotline” that he helped set up and could contact Telegram's EU representative at any time.
“When a country is unhappy with an internet service, it has traditionally filed a lawsuit against the service itself,” he wrote.
“Using pre-smartphone law to sue a CEO for crimes committed by third parties on a platform he controls is the wrong approach.”
He said Telegram is not perfect, but denied any abuse linked to the app.
“However, claims by some media outlets that Telegram is some kind of anarchist haven are completely false,” he wrote. “We remove millions of harmful posts and channels every day.”
Durov, now a French national, was detained in France late last month amid an investigation into criminal charges relating to child sexual abuse imagery, drug trafficking and fraud dealing linked to the app.
He was accused by French judicial authorities of enabling criminal activity on a messaging app, but was released from pre-trial detention on a €5 million bail, on the condition that he report to police twice a week and remain in France.
The charges against Durov include conspiring to spread sexual images of children as well as a number of other violations on messaging apps.
His sudden arrest has focused attention on criminal liability for Telegram, a popular app with about a billion users, and sparked a debate over free speech and government censorship.
Reuters contributed to this report.
