In his first public statement since his detention, Durov denied accusations that Telegram is “some sort of anarchic paradise,” labelling them as “absolutely untrue.”
Durov was arrested on 25 August at an airport north of Paris and has since been charged with suspected complicity in allowing illicit activities, including drug trafficking, fraud, and the spread of child sex abuse images on the platform.
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In his statement, published on Telegram, Durov expressed surprise at being held responsible for crimes committed by third parties on the platform, describing the approach as “surprising” and “misguided.”
“If a country is unhappy with an Internet service, the established practice is to start a legal action against the service itself,” the Russian-born billionaire, who is also a French national, 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 potential abuse of those tools,” he added.
While he conceded that Telegram was not perfect, he said French authorities had several ways to get in touch with him and with Telegram, and that the app has an official representative in the EU.
“The 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,” he insisted.
Telegram allows groups with up to 200,000 members, a feature that critics argue facilitates the spread of misinformation and the sharing of harmful content, including conspiracist, neo-Nazi, paedophilic, or terror-related material.
Recently, the app has come under scrutiny in the UK for hosting far-right channels that played a significant role in organizing violent disorder in English cities last month.
Although Telegram has removed some groups, cybersecurity experts argue that its moderation of extremist and illegal content remains much weaker compared to other social media platforms and messaging apps.
In his statement on Thursday, Telegram founder Pavel Durov acknowledged an “abrupt increase” in users—now totaling 950 million—has led to “growing pains” that have made it easier for criminals to exploit the platform. He pledged to “significantly improve” moderation efforts.
This comes after the BBC reported last week that Telegram had refused to join international programs aimed at detecting and removing child abuse material online.
Durov, 39, was born in Russia and now resides in Dubai, where Telegram is headquartered. He holds citizenship in the United Arab Emirates and France.
Founded in 2013, Telegram is particularly popular in Russia, Ukraine, and former Soviet states. The app was banned in Russia in 2018 after Durov refused to hand over user data, but the ban was reversed in 2021.
Telegram is ranked among the top social media platforms globally, following Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and WeChat.
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