Telegram founder Durov defends platform amid French legal challenges

- 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 - said Pavel Durov, the creator of the Telegram messenger, who was detained in France. He assured Telegram that he would be ready to withdraw from countries where confidentiality and security requirements could not be reconciled.

Durov published his first comment on Thursday evening after being detained in France at the end of August on charges related to organized crime.

As he informed me, he was told that he faces personal responsibility for users of the messenger using it unlawfully because the French authorities did not receive the required responses from Telegram. Durov assessed this as a "mistaken approach," and the accusations are astonishing.

If a country is dissatisfied with an internet service, it is customary to initiate legal proceedings against that service - he noted.

He assessed that it is a "mistaken approach" to "use pre-smartphone era regulations" to accuse him of user crimes as the head of the company managing the service.

Durov argued that finding the right balance between confidentiality and security is difficult. He assured Telegram that it tries cooperating with regulators to find a balance and is open to dialogue.

- Sometimes we can't agree with a country's regulator on the right balance between privacy and security. In those cases, we are ready to leave that country, added Durov.

He referred to the decision to withdraw the messenger from Russia and Iran when the authorities of those countries demanded the encryption keys—as was the case in Russia—or blocked certain channels, as Iran demanded. Telegram then refused and was blocked in Iran.

Durov, who is a Russian citizen and also holds a French passport, has been charged in France with 12 counts related to organised crime. As he mentioned in his comment, he was interrogated four days after arriving in Paris.

After being detained, Durov was released after posting bail in the amount of 4.8 million pounds. He must also report to the police station twice weekly and cannot leave French territory.