Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov vowing increased efforts to fight crime on the messaging app, his first public comments since French authorities handed him over preliminary charges for allowing the platform to be used for criminal activity.
In a post on Telegram, Durov defended himself against the French judicial investigation, suggesting that he personally should not have been targeted.
“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,” the post said. “Building technology is hard enough as it is. No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be held personally liable for potential misuse of those tools.”
While insisting that Telegram is not “some kind of anarchist paradise,” Durov said that an increasing number of Telegram users “caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform.”
“That’s why I made it my personal goal to make sure we improve things significantly in this regard. We’ve already started that process internally, and I’ll be sharing more information about our progress with you very soon,” he said.