Pavel Durov reacts to the arrest in France: Laws from the pre-smartphone era apply
2024-09-06 13:07:35
TiranaPost
The founder of the messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, under investigation in France, has described his arrest as wrong, while adding that French authorities should address his company about the complaints they had.
"If a country is unhappy with an internet service, the established practice is to take legal action against the service itself," he wrote.
Durov went on to say that "using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO for crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is the wrong approach."
Telegram, he said, was not perfect, but he denied any abuse related to the app.
"But claims in some media that Telegram is some kind of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue," he wrote, adding "we remove millions of harmful posts and channels every day."
Durov has been charged by French justice with allowing criminal activity on the messaging app, but escaped jail on a 5 million euro bond. He was released on the condition that he report to a police station twice a week and remain in France.
The charges against Durov include complicity in the distribution of sexual images of children and a number of other alleged violations on the messaging app.
