Pavel Durov, CEO of the messaging app Telegram, made his first comments since his arrest in France last month. He said it was "misguided" to blame him for illegal activity among Telegram's 950 million users but promised he would try to do better.
“No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools,” Durov wrote.
He referred to the drug sales, child porn, and other illegal activities spread via his site as "growing pains."
“That’s why I made it my personal goal to ensure we significantly improve things in this regard,” he said.
One of the reasons for Durov's arrest was the French authorities claiming an “almost total lack of response” to requests related to criminal investigations. “This was a surprise to me,” Durov said in his Telegram comments.
Durov said that Telegram was not perfect, but the facts don't bear out the idea that it was an “anarchic paradise." He said that the site takes down millions of posts a day and would announce further moderation changes "very soon."
Mr. Durov said France was using laws from the “pre-smartphone era” to charge him with crimes committed by Telegram’s users. It would be more appropriate to bring legal action against his company, not him personally, he said.
Operating a global communications platform is a tricky balance between privacy and security, he noted. In Russia and Iran, he said, the company has been willing to be banned rather than cede to government demands.
“We are driven by the intention to bring good and defend the basic rights of people, particularly in places where these rights are violated,” he said.
The issues raised by Durov's arrest won't be settled by a trial. Durov apparently wants to modify the app to prevent some of the illegal activity. He wants to stay out of prison, which is understandable given that the French government is serious about making an example of him.
Durov's entire company has only 30 employees. We can expect this number to rise dramatically if he's going to go all in on moderation. Removing posts for child porn and drug sales will only be the start. Soon, he will face pressure to start moderating political speech.
But the chill on free speech can't be dismissed.
The actions of French prosecutors may herald an era in which national authorities clamp down on illicit or harmful actions enabled by internet platforms. Last week, a Brazilian Supreme Court judge, Alexandre de Moraes, suspended X for defying a court order to appoint a legal representative in the country. It followed an earlier court order to suspend dozens of accounts for spreading disinformation.
In Telegram’s case, law enforcement officials complained that efforts to communicate were ignored.
Durov argued that Telegram, widely seen as a platform with low levels of content moderation, did remove harmful content.
“When Russia demanded we hand over ‘encryption keys’ to enable surveillance, we refused — and Telegram got banned in Russia.” (Russia later abandoned efforts to ban the app.) But Durov hasn't said how he might compromise his principles to stay on the right side of French or any other government's law enforcement.
Elon Musk's X has been banned in Brazil after Musk refused to appoint a new legal representative in the country before a court-imposed deadline. It's a personal grudge match with the Brazilian judge who called for the suspension of a dozen accounts for spreading "disinformation." Musk refused.
How much longer can free speech advocates resist the naked power of governments?
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