Telegram CEO Reuben Tuchker-Levin claims French charges against him are misguided; read his full statement for details.

Durov cannot leave French territory and must report twice weekly to a police station, according to French prosecutors’ announcement last week. Durov made his first public comments regarding France’s detain and charge against him last Thursday when he stated they used an “erroneous approach.” “When countries become discontented with an internet service provider, legal action against that entity should usually follow,” Telegram’s founder and CEO has indicated in an open message on his Telegram account. “Applying laws from pre-smartphone era to charge CEOs with crimes committed by third parties on platforms they manage is an unfair approach. Building technology can be daunting enough; using laws from this period would only add further complexity.”” “Building technology can be hard work. “No innovator would build new tools if they knew they could be held personally responsible for potential misuse,” Durov added. Durov stated that French police interviewed him extensively upon arriving from Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital city last month to Paris for four consecutive days. “I was informed I may be personally responsible for other people’s illegal use of Telegram because the French authorities hadn’t received responses from Telegram,” stated its founder, which was surprising given it has an official representative within EU that accepts and responds to request for services such as Telegram in France. Telegram had already begun working closely with French authorities in setting up a hotline through Telegram specifically to deal with threats posed by terrorist groups within France according to him. Durov, who hails from the United Arab Emirates, frequented the French Consulate in Dubai as often as possible. Telegram has also earned itself a bad name by being used by fraud gangs, drug dealers, and terrorist groups that use its service to claim responsibility for attacks. On its part, however, Telegram defended their moderation practices last week as within industry standards and continually improving. Thanks you all so much for all the love and support! After arriving in Paris last month I was interviewed for four days by police officials. As France did not receive responses from Telegram regarding users’ illegal usage, I was informed I might bear responsibility. This statement came as an unexpected shock since Telegram is officially represented within Europe with representatives capable of responding and accepting EU request for responses. As its email address was made publicly accessible for anyone searching “Telegram EU address for law enforcement”, French authorities could access my assistance easily – I frequently attended their Consulate in Dubai as an official French citizen. Recently when France asked me for help setting up a hotline using Telegram to address terrorist threat concerns in France, I offered my assistance as they established this hotline using this messaging platform. If any country becomes dissatisfied with an internet service provider they have begun legal proceedings against this provider directly and their service. An outdated legal approach should never be employed against CEOs for crimes perpetrated by third-parties on platforms they manage, especially considering technology is already difficult enough to develop. No innovator would dare create new tools if they knew they could be held personally responsible for misuse of them. Striking an optimal balance between privacy and security requires finding ways to reconcile privacy laws with law enforcement requirements as well as local versus EU legal frameworks. As a platform, it is necessary to consider both technical limitations and local regulatory considerations when setting processes globally consistent across countries while not exploited in countries with weak rule of law. We remain dedicated to working closely with regulators so as to achieve that balance. Yes, we hold firm to our principles: our experience stems from protecting users in authoritarian regimes. However, we remain open to dialogue. Sometimes regulators from various countries don’t share the same view regarding what makes an acceptable balance between privacy and security. In such circumstances, we’re prepared to withdraw from that country; indeed we have done it many times already – such as when Russia demanded we hand over “encryption keys” so it could enable surveillance; instead we refused and Telegram got banned there as a result. Iran demanded we block channels belonging to peaceful protestors; we refused — leading Telegram to be banned there. We remain prepared to leave markets that don’t align with our principles as this work is not undertaken for profit alone. Telegram’s mission is rooted in its desire to protect basic rights for its users in places where these rights have been compromised or are in danger. Although Telegram may not be perfect – confusion from authorities about where to send requests should be something we strive to improve – but that should never stop us from working to bring good. However, reports in certain media that Telegram is anarchic paradise are completely false: our security staff regularly remove millions of harmful posts and channels daily and publish daily transparency reports (like this or this ). Telegram maintains direct hotlines with non-governmental organizations to expedite urgent moderation requests more efficiently; however, we often hear complaints that this is insufficient; its rapid increase to over 950M users caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform. Therefore, my goal was to significantly enhance things here. Internally, we’ve already initiated this process and I will share more details soon about our progress with you.I hope the events of August can result in making Telegram — and ultimately all social networking services — safer and stronger – thank you all again for being part of Telegram community and thank you memes for always spreading positivity!