TG founder speaks out for the first time after being arrested: We are not here to make money, but to defend people’s basic rights

Lila

24-09-06 11:16

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On August 25, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov was detained in Paris, France, and faced multiple charges including fraud, money laundering, and terrorism. On August 29, Pavel Durov was released after paying a 5 million euro bail, but was not allowed to leave France. Full summary of the incident: 《Real-time update｜Telegram transfers its statement on chat privacy; founder promises to improve platform supervision after arrest》

After nearly a week of silence, Durov posted a message on his official personal channel for the first time this morning in response to the Paris detention storm. The following is the full text of his statement:

Thank you for your support and concern!

Last month, I was interrogated by the police for four days after arriving in Paris. I was told that I could be held personally liable for the illegal use of Telegram by others because the French authorities had not received a response from Telegram.

This surprised me for the following reasons:

1. Telegram has an official representative in the EU who receives and responds to requests from the EU. Their email address is public and anyone in the EU can find it by simply searching Google for “Telegram EU law enforcement contact address.”

2. French authorities have multiple ways to contact me for assistance. As a French citizen, I am a frequent visitor to the French Consulate in Dubai. Previously, when they asked, I personally helped them set up a hotline with Telegram to deal with terrorist threats in France.

3. If a country is unhappy with an internet service, the usual practice is to initiate legal action against the service itself. It is a mistake to use pre-smartphone laws to hold platform CEOs responsible for crimes committed by third parties on the platform. Building technology is already difficult. Innovators would never build new tools if they knew they could be held personally liable for potential misuse of those tools.

Finding the right balance between privacy and security is not easy. You have to reconcile privacy laws with law enforcement requirements, and local laws with EU laws. You also need to consider technical limitations. As a platform, you want your processes to be consistent globally, while ensuring that they cannot be abused in countries with weak laws. We are committed to working with regulators to find the right balance. Yes, we stand by our principles: our experience is shaped by our mission to keep users safe in repressive regimes. But we are also always willing to have a dialogue.

Sometimes we can’t find the right balance between privacy and security with a country’s regulators. In these cases, we’re ready to leave the country. In fact, we’ve already done so. When Russia asked us to hand over our “encryption keys” for surveillance, we refused — and Telegram was banned in Russia. When Iran asked us to block channels for peaceful protesters, we refused — and Telegram was banned in Iran. We’re ready to leave markets that are incompatible with our principles, because we’re not in this to make money. We’re in this to bring goodwill and defend people’s fundamental rights, especially where those rights are violated.

That doesn’t mean Telegram is perfect. For example, authorities are confused about the channels through which requests are sent, and that’s something we need to improve. But the claims by some media that Telegram is some kind of anarchist paradise are simply untrue. We remove millions of harmful posts and channels every day. We publish daily transparency reports (such as this or this). We've also set up direct hotlines with NGOs to process urgent review requests more quickly.

However, we've noticed some voices that think this is not enough. Telegram's sudden growth to 950 million users has also brought growing pains, making it easier for criminals to abuse our platform. That's why I'm making sure we continue to make improvements in this area. We've already started this process internally and will share more details about our progress with you soon.

I hope that the events of August will make Telegram, and the entire social network industry, safer and stronger. Thank you again for your concern and support.