Telegram CEO breaks silence after arrest, says it's not true that the platform is an 'anarchic paradise'

"Thanks again for your love and memes," Telegram CEO Pavel Durov wrote on his Telegram channel on Thursday.

Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images; AOP.Press/Corbis via Getty Images

• Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said he was surprised by his arrest in Paris last month.
• Durov said the French authorities should have taken legal action against Telegram instead of him.
• French authorities have accused Durov of allowing the proliferation of illegal activity on Telegram.

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov made his first public statement on Thursday since getting detained by French authorities last month.

In a lengthy post that was published on his Telegram channel, Durov said that his arrest came as a surprise to him.

"Last month I got interviewed by police for 4 days after arriving in Paris. I was told I may be personally responsible for other people's illegal use of Telegram, because the French authorities didn't receive responses from Telegram," Durov wrote.

But the authorities, Durov said, could have contacted Telegram for assistance if they'd wanted to.

"Telegram has an official representative in the EU that accepts and replies to EU requests," he wrote, adding that he'd also helped French authorities to "establish a hotline with Telegram to deal with the threat of terrorism in France."

I'm still trying to understand what happened in France. But we hear the concerns. I made it my personal goal to prevent abusers of Telegram's platform from interfering with the future of our 950+ million users.

My full post below. https://t.co/cDvRSodjst

— Pavel Durov (@durov) September 5, 2024

Durov was arrested by French police on August 24 after he'd arrived in Paris on his private jet.

The Russian-born entrepreneur was handed preliminary charges just days later, on August 28. Durov was accused of being complicit in the distribution of child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking on Telegram.

Durov, who obtained French citizenship in 2021, has since been released from custody though he is not allowed to leave France.

"If a country is unhappy with an internet service, the established practice is to start a legal action against the service itself," Durov wrote on Thursday.

"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."

French President Emmanuel Macron said on August 26 that Durov's arrest is "in no way a political decision."

I have seen false information regarding France following the arrest of Pavel Durov.

France is deeply committed to freedom of expression and communication, to innovation, and to the spirit of entrepreneurship. It will remain so.

In a state governed by the rule of law,…

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) August 26, 2024

"The arrest of Telegram's president on French territory took place as part of an ongoing judicial investigation. This is in no way a political decision. It is up to the judges to decide," Macron wrote in an X post.

Telegram, Durov said, recognizes the challenge of balancing privacy with security and has been "engaging with regulators to find the right balance."

"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," he wrote, adding that Telegram was banned in Russia and Iran when they refused to comply with local authorities.

Telegram was by no means perfect but it certainly isn't an "anarchic paradise," Durov said on his channel.

"Telegram's abrupt increase in user count to 950M caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform. That's why I made it my personal goal to ensure we significantly improve things in this regard," he wrote in his post, adding that more details will be shared soon.

"Thanks again for your love and memes," Durov added.

Representatives for Telegram didn't immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.

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