- Telegram founder and CEO was arrested on August 24, 2024.
- On Friday, he released his first statement on Telegram since his detainment, calling the actions taken by the French authorities “misguided”.
- He further added that they should have charged the company instead of directly charging him.
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov have called his detainment by French authorities “misguided”. He added that they should have approached his company with whatever complaints they had instead of detaining him.
Early on Friday, he shared his first public post on his Telegram channel saying “If a country is unhappy with an internet service, the established practice is to start a legal action against the service itself.”
In fact, he has already set up a hotline for the authorities that they could have used to reach the company’s legal representatives in the EU with any of their concerns. But instead, they chose to charge the CEO.
He feels that this kind of behavior will hinder innovation. After all, building new tech is hard enough. Now if the developers are held accountable for the potential misuse of their tools by other people, that’s simply unfair.
As it happened in his case, Durov was told that he was “personally” responsible for illegal use of Telegram.
Durov also denied the allegation that Telegram is an “anarchic paradise”. In fact, Telegram reportedly takes down millions of harmful channels and posts every day.
More About Durov’s Arrest
On July 8, the French authorities opened an investigation against Telegram on charges of organized crime, drug trafficking, fraud, and the distribution of pornographic images of minors on Telegram.
Then, on August 24, 2024, the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office issued an arrest warrant against Pavel Durov.
Durov’s arrest triggered a lot of controversy, with many calling it an attempt on France’s part to curb freedom of speech.
- The main criticism came from Russia where Durov was born. And although he is now a French and UAE citizen, Russia still considers him as a citizen which is why it’s so concerned about his arrest.
- Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, also added that France has made some serious accusations against Durov but is yet to back them up with any evidence and without that, this move can be seen as a direct act of intimidation or an attempt to limit freedom of speech.
French President Emmanuel Macron had to clarify on X that this was neither a political move nor an attempt to curb freedom of speech. This is just an independent investigation into Telegram.
Problems With Telegram
Although Durov is right about France’s misguided approach i.e. they probably should have charged Telegram as a company instead of directly arresting him, it’s hard to ignore that Telegram is indeed problematic.
- Durov has always marketed it as an uncensored platform that supports free speech which means it has fewer content rules compared to other platforms.
- Without any strict policy in place, users can easily share illegal content such as child porn.
- Also, Telegram allows people to remain anonymous and have secure, encrypted conversations without interference from the authorities. This has made it harder for criminals to be apprehended.
Maybe Durov’s intentions were noble and it has certainly helped users who are stuck in authoritarian regimes like Iran and Hong Kong but criminals have surely exploited it for their own greed. Thus, France has a point – Telegram and its policies need to change.
Durov agrees with this and says at the end of his statement that “he has heard the voices” that he is not doing enough. Hence, he has made it his personal mission to improve security on the platform.
The process has already started internally. For instance, in a post shared by Musk on X, we can see that Telegram has quietly removed the clause that “All Telegram chats and group chats are private amongst their participants. We do not process any requests related to them.” from its FAQs section.
