Telegram chief says charging him for crimes committed by 3rd parties is 'misguided approach'

MOSCOW

Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov released a statement Thursday, his first since his arrest last month in France.

Durov called the actions of the French authorities "surprising," insisting that "using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a misguided approach."

He said he was interviewed by police for four days after arriving in Paris last month and was told that he "may be personally responsible for other people’s illegal use of Telegram, because the French authorities didn’t receive responses from Telegram."

Durov stressed that he was "surprised" by the French authorities’ decision to detain him because "Telegram has an official representative in the EU that accepts and replies to EU requests."

"Its email address has been publicly available for anyone in the EU who Googles “Telegram EU address for law enforcement,” he said.

In addition, Durov said that French authorities had numerous ways to reach him to request assistance, noting that as a French citizen, he was "a frequent guest" at this nation's consulate in Dubai.

"A while ago, when asked, I personally helped them establish a hotline with Telegram to deal with the threat of terrorism in France," he said.

Durov added that "if a country is unhappy with an internet service, the established practice is to start legal action against the service itself."

"Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a misguided approach. Building technology is hard enough as it is. No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools," he stressed.

Durov also highlighted the difficulties that people like him face while trying to establish "the right balance between privacy and security," noting that Telegram has been "committed to engaging with regulators" to find it.

"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. We've done it many times. When Russia demanded we hand over 'encryption keys' to enable surveillance, we refused — and Telegram got banned in Russia. When Iran demanded we block channels of peaceful protesters, we refused — and Telegram got banned in Iran. We are prepared to leave markets that aren’t compatible with our principles, because we are not doing this for money," he said.

Durov pledged to improve feedback channels with authorities, but his arrest revealed that they "could be confused by where to send requests."

"But 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. We publish daily transparency reports. We have direct hotlines with NGOs to process urgent moderation requests faster," he emphasized.

He also said the recent sharp increase in the number of users and problems caused by that prompted him to prevent criminals from abusing his app.

"We’ve already started that process internally, and I will share more details on our progress with you very soon. I hope that the events of August will result in making Telegram — and the social networking industry as a whole — safer and stronger. Thanks again for your love and memes," he added.