Pavel Durov, the boss of Telegram who has been indicted for numerous offences related to his messaging app, assures that he moderates the content on his platform.
A neutral and safe political space, free from government interference. That is the promise of the Telegram messaging service. But the lack of moderation on the platform against the dissemination of criminal or offending content and the lack of communication with the government has led to its boss, Pavel Durov, being caught up with by the French justice system.
The business leader was arrested on August 24 upon his arrival in Paris. He was then indicted for numerous offenses related to his messaging application and banned from leaving the country, in particular due to Telegram’s lack of cooperation with law enforcement.
Moderation criticized
Yet Pavel Durov assures us that Telegram is not a lawless zone. Indeed, in a long message shared on the application this Thursday, September 5, he refutes the claims that “Telegram is a kind of anarchic paradise”, calling them “absolutely false”.
The boss reminds that the contents are moderated on the platform.
“We remove millions of harmful messages and channels every day,” recalls the platform’s boss.
“We publish daily transparency reports. We have direct hotlines with NGOs to handle urgent moderation requests more quickly,” he adds.
Towards the end of Telegram in France?
In 2015, for example, Telegram had blocked 78 used chat channels by jihadists to communicate with each other. But these deletions remain at the very least episodic and too rare in the eyes of the authorities.
The 39-year-old billionaire, whose current fortune is estimated by Forbes magazine at $15.5 billion, acknowledges that his app is not “perfect”. Indeed, he believes that the sharp rise in the number of Telegram users (which he now estimates at 950 million worldwide) has “made it easier for criminals to abuse the app” [la] platform”. He assures that he wants to “improve things in this regard”, specifying that the process has already been launched.
Efforts that he hopes will be enough to reassure the French justice system. In the event of “no agreement with the French regulatory authorities on a fair balance between privacy and security”, Pavel Durov does not rule out removing Telegram in France.
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