“Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and frequently travels to Europe,” the company said in a statement posted through the app, adding that Telegram “complies with the laws of the European Union”including the Digital Services Act. Its moderation is within industry standards.”
“It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for abuses” on that platform, the company added.. On Sunday evening, French judicial authorities extended the detention of Durov, the day after he was arrested at a Paris airport for crimes related to the popular messaging service.
Embed – https://publish.twitter.com/oembed?url=https://x.com/telegram/status/1827787345367834772&partner=&hide_thread=false
Telegram abides by EU laws, including the Digital Services Act — its moderation is within industry standards and constantly improving.
Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe.
It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner…
—Telegram Messenger (@telegram) August 25, 2024
Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov arrested in France
Accompanied by his bodyguard and his assistant, The 39-year-old Franco-Russian billionaire was arrested on Saturday evening at Le Bourget airportnorth of the capital, a source close to the case told AFP. Durov, founder of Telegram together with his brother Nikola, arrived from Baku, Azerbaijanand had to spend at least the night in Paris where I had a dinner plannedadded a source close to the investigation.
The investigating judge in charge of the case on Sunday night extended the pre-trial detention, which could last up to 96 hours at most, according to another source close to the case. The French agency for the prevention of violence against minors, OFMIN, had issued an arrest warrant against Durov as part of a preliminary investigation into several crimes, including fraud, drug trafficking, cyberbullying, organized crime and promotion of terrorism, one of the sources said.
“Pavel Durov will ultimately end up in pre-trial detention. On his platform, he allowed countless crimes and misdeeds to be committed, which he did nothing to moderate or cooperate with. [con las fuerzas del orden]”, assured French judicial authorities.
Durov is suspected of not taking action to prevent the use of the platform Telegram for criminal purposes. The platform positioned itself as an alternative to American messaging platforms, criticised for their commercial exploitation of users’ personal data. The encrypted messaging app pledged to never reveal information about its users.
Who is Pavel Durov?
Pavel spent part of his childhood in Italy, where his father was pursuing his PhD in philosophy. The family returned to Russia in 2001, when the Russian businessman was beginning his career as a philosophy major at St. Petersburg State University. He later trained to become an interpreter and translator. At this time he created an online library so that his classmates could share notes and books.
His partner, Vyacheslav Mirilashvili, saw the potential of what Pavel had done and raised the money to expand the project, giving birth to VKontake (VK)Like Facebook, the social network started out as a student-only site in 2006. A year later, its site already had 3 million users, and today it is the most popular site in Russia and other European countries, with 100 million active users.
The social network’s growth was constant, but its abrupt exit was due to Russian persecution. Pavel claims that his company had been taken over by allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who had gathered 88% of VK’s shares. Durov sold his shares for around $300 millionwhen he left his native country in 2014.
Durov created Telegram a few months before going into exilein August 2013. The entrepreneur said: “I created Telegram so I could communicate with my brother and the people around me without fear of being spied on.” Today, the app has 900 million users and is available in more than 20 languages.
Source: Ambito