Telegram CEO: Arresting me over crimes committed by third parties misguided

Pavel Durov, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Telegram, says his arrest over allegations of insufficient moderation on the messaging app is “misguided”.

Durov was arrested by the French police at the Le Bourget airport on August 25.

The 39-year-old was held for suspected complicity in allowing illicit transactions, drug trafficking, fraud, and the spread of child sex abuse images relating to the popular messaging app, according to international media.

On August 28, the Telegram CEO was released from police custody — after four days of interrogation — and transferred to a Paris court for more questioning.

Speaking on his arrest on Thursday, Durov said the police holding him responsible for crimes committed by third parties on the platform was both a “surprising” and “misguided approach”.

“If a country is unhappy with an Internet service, the established practice is to start a legal action against the service itself,” the Telegram CEO said.

“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 the potential abuse of those tools.”

Admitting that Telegram is not perfect, Durov said French authorities had several ways to get in touch with him and the firm.

He added that the app has an official representative in the European Union (EU).

Telegram allows groups of up to 200,000 members, critics say makes it easier for misinformation and disinformation to spread and for users to share conspiracist, neo-Nazi, paedophilic, or terror-related content.

The app, with close to one billion users, is particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine, and the republics of the former Soviet Union.