Telegram founder Pavel Durov spoke out for the first time since his arrest by French authorities at Bourget airport outside Paris on August 25.
Durov, the billionaire CEO of a popular messaging app, Hit The CEO of Telegram complained to the French government on Thursday about being personally targeted in a Telegram post, criticizing the authorities for punishing him for the actions of others who misused his social media platform.
“Using pre-smartphone law to sue a CEO for crimes committed by third parties on a platform he controls is a flawed approach,” Durov wrote. “Building technology is hard enough; innovators are unlikely to develop new tools if they know they could be held personally liable for the potential misuse of those tools.”
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov posted this statement on his Telegram channel, his first since his arrest in France last month. It's worth a read. pic.twitter.com/XrZDTWx45b
— Gabor Gurbacs (@gaborgurbacs) September 5, 2024
French authorities alleged that Durov's Telegram platform was being used for criminal activities, including the storage of child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking. According to He told ABC News that prosecutors charged Durov with hosting an online platform enabling illegal transactions, distributing child sexual abuse material, drug trafficking, conspiring to commit fraud and other crimes, and failing to comply with law enforcement orders. Axios Reported. (Related article: Jonathan Turley denounces 'global censorship' following Telegram founder arrest, says Americans should be afraid)
The Russia-born billionaire CEO wrote that he was surprised to be told that he “might be personally liable for other people's illegal use of Telegram.”
According to ABC News, Durov said Telegram is “not a haven for anarchists” and acknowledged that the platform's rapid growth in users “has caused growing pains that have made it easier for criminals to use the platform. He said Telegram is making internal improvements to address this issue.”
“That's why I made it my personal goal to significantly improve things in this regard. We have already started the process internally and will share more details about our progress with you soon,” Durov wrote.
Durov said in his post that French authorities have many ways to contact him regarding their concerns, and that he has previously worked with French authorities to “establish a Telegram and hotline to address terrorist threats in France.”
“If a country is dissatisfied with an internet service, it is customary to file a lawsuit against the service itself,” Durov said.
Prior to his arrest, Telegram founder Durov told Tucker Carlson in April that the US government had hired one of his platform's engineers without his knowledge to try to spy on Telegram users. On Thursday, the conservative group America First Legal (AFL) filed two Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the State Department regarding a “report” from State Department official Mike Bentz that “the Biden-Harris administration may have known about Durov's arrest prior to it.”
Concerns about censorship by big tech companies are growing around the world. Brazilian Supreme Court Judge Alexandre de Moraes has petitioned the federal government to ban Twitter in Brazil and block members of the public's social media accounts for their political beliefs, according to a screenshot of a document published by Twitter on Wednesday.
Billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter Inc. in 2022 and renamed the platform X in response to former President Donald Trump and his censorship of conservative political content. President Trump announced Thursday that he would appoint Musk to chair the Government Efficiency Commission if he is re-elected in November.
