Pavel Durov promised that modifications will probably be dropped at some options in Telegram options.
CEO of Telegram Pavel Durov has spoken for the primary time since his arrest final month. The Russian-born CEO was arrested in Paris on fees of publishing extremist and unlawful content material.
Calling his arrest “stunning” and the fees towards him “misguided”, Durov promised that modifications will probably be dropped at some options in Telegram options so as to “enhance” the app’s efforts to stop criminals from misusing the platform.
The 39-year-old was arrested after he was accused of failing to take away unlawful content material like youngster pornography from Telegram. His bail was set at $5.6 million and he’s required to report back to a police station twice every week.
French authorities stated Telegram didn’t reply to their requests for info relating to suspicious legal exercise on its app, together with drug trafficking.
Mr Durov argued {that a} CEO shouldn’t be accountable if a platform is “doubtlessly abused”. Stating that constructing expertise is “exhausting as it’s”, he stated that if CEOs have been held accountable, nobody would ever innovate.
“Utilizing legal guidelines from the pre-smartphone period to cost a CEO with crimes dedicated by third events on the platform he manages is a misguided method. Constructing expertise is difficult sufficient as it’s. No innovator will ever construct new instruments in the event that they know they are often personally held accountable for potential abuse of these instruments,” he stated.
Mr Durov additionally spoke of his arrest saying he was questioned by police for 4 days. “I used to be advised I could also be personally accountable for different individuals’s unlawful use of Telegram as a result of the French authorities did not obtain responses from Telegram,” he stated, including that in the event that they needed to ask for his assist, they may have simply “Googled Telegram EU handle”.
Whereas arguing that the extent of moderation on Telegram is low in comparison with different social media or messaging apps, Mr Durov said that the platform did take away objectionable content material.
“Claims in some media that Telegram is a few form of anarchic paradise are completely unfaithful. We take down hundreds of thousands of dangerous posts and channels day-after-day. Nevertheless, we hear voices saying that it isn’t sufficient,” he stated.
He additionally introduced the elimination of some options like its running a blog instrument Telegraph
“Whereas 99.999% of Telegram customers don’t have anything to do with crime, the 0.001% concerned in illicit actions create a nasty picture for the complete platform, placing the pursuits of our nearly billion customers in danger,” he stated.
Citing examples of Iran and Russia, each regimes that he claimed sought to censor and surveil their residents, the CEO stated Telegram was prepared to go away any nation that abused the app customers’ proper to privateness.