Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, is pictured onstage at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2015 on Sept. 21, 2015, in San Francisco.
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Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov broke his silence eight days after being indicted by French authorities.
On his personal Telegram channel, amid thank yous, hearts and thumbs up emojis, Durov defiantly refuted claims that his messaging platform is “an anarchic paradise” and criticized the French charges as ‘misguided.’
“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. “
While the Russian born tech billionaire acknowledged Telegram is “not perfect,” he maintained the company has taken down “millions of posts and channels every day” and is busy remedying protocols to make the platform “safer and stronger.”
Telegram has seen huge growth since its founding in 2013. It now boasts 950 million global users. Durov blamed “growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform.”
The 39-year old citizen of France and the United Arab Emirates was indicted on Aug. 28 in Paris on multiple charges including complicity to spread child abuse images and traffic drugs, as well as failure to comply with law enforcement. He was ordered to post bail equivalent to about $5.5 million and placed under court monitoring. He is also not permitted to leave the country.
In his first public message since being detained, Durov said he was “surprised” and added details of what went down in the days after he was arrested in Paris in late August.
“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.”
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said in a statement last week outlining the wide-ranging charges that Telegram exhibited an “almost total failure to respond to judicial requests.”
Durov says he finds this “surprising” writing in his post:
“Telegram has an official representative in the EU that accepts and replies to EU requests,” and “The French authorities had numerous ways to reach me to request assistance.”