In France, being put under formal investigation does not imply guilt or necessarily result in a trial – but it indicates that judges consider there is enough of a case to proceed with an investigation.
In Mr Durov’s statement, which he published on Telegram, he said holding him responsible for crimes committed by third parties on the platform was both a “surprising” and “misguided approach”.
“If a country is unhappy with an Internet service, the established practice is to start a legal action against the service itself,” the Russian-born billionaire, who is also a French national, said.
“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.”
“Building technology is hard enough as it is. No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools,” he added.
While he conceded that Telegram was not perfect, he said French authorities had several ways to get in touch with him and with Telegram, and that the app has an official representative in the EU.
“The claims in some media that Telegram is some sort of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue. We take down millions of harmful posts and channels every day,” he insisted.
Telegram allows groups of up to 200,000 members, which critics have argued makes it easier for misinformation to spread, and for users to share conspiracist, neo-Nazi, paedophilic, or terror-related content.
Recently in the UK, the app has been scrutinised for hosting far-right channels that were instrumental in organising violent disorder in English cities last month.
Telegram did remove some groups, however cybersecurity experts say overall its system of moderating extremist and illegal content is significantly weaker than that of other social media companies and messenger apps.
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