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Telegram chief executive Pavel Durov has spoken out for the first time since French authorities detained and charged him at the end of August over an alleged failure to address criminal content on the platform.
In a long post on the site on Thursday, Durov — who faces a litany of preliminary charges related to the company’s alleged lack of content moderation policies — said he was surprised by the decision to pursue him instead of starting legal proceedings against the company itself. If the French authorities needed assistance, he said, they “had numerous ways to reach me”.
Durov promised to ensure the platform moves to “significantly improve” its response to criminals using its service, blaming an “abrupt increase in user count” to 950mn for “growing pains”.
But he added the company is “prepared to leave markets that aren’t compatible with our principles”, and criticised the French authorities for their “misguided approach”.
Durov was detained at Paris-Le Bourget airport on August 24 when he arrived in France on his private jet from Azerbaijan, and interviewed by police over four days. He has been placed under formal investigation by a French judge and is required to remain in French territory.
Durov, a dual French-Emirati citizen, has pitched Telegram as an online safe haven insulated from government oversight. Yet the company’s hands-off approach to content moderation has led French prosecutors to accuse him of enabling money laundering, drug trafficking and the distribution of child sexual abuse.
In his post, Durov questioned the decision to hold him personally responsible for Telegram users, saying that “if a country is unhappy with an internet service, the established practice is to start a 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,” he said, claiming he was a “frequent guest” at the French consulate in Dubai, where the company is headquartered.
Durov said he had previously responded to French authorities who wanted to establish a hotline with Telegram to deal with terrorist threats. He added that “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.”
Durov’s case has sparked a broader debate about the limits of free speech on online platforms, with Elon Musk, the owner of social media platform X, hitting out at French authorities over the move.
