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Pavel Durov acknowledges criminal elements on Telegram and announces changes to moderation on the platform.
Russian-born tech entrepreneur Pavel Durov broke his silence late last week, promising changes to Telegram’s platform to fight “illicit activities that, he says, are creating a bad image of the platform.
Durov, who resides in Dubai, where Telegram is based, posted a pair of statements on his own Telegram channel on 6 September – 16 days after he was arrested by French authorities after landing in the country via his private jet on 24 August.
In a post ostensibly celebrating the milestone of 10 million paying subscribers, Durov made a passing reference to changing how the platform is moderated.
“While 99.999 per cent of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001 per cent involved in illicit activities create a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our almost billion users at risk,” Durov said to his more than 12 million subscribers.
“That’s why this year, we are committed to turn moderation on Telegram from an area of criticism into one of praise.”
Durov did not go into any further detail on how this would occur.
In a previous post on the same day, Durov said he was surprised to be detained by French authorities and laid out his reasons why.
“The French authorities had numerous ways to reach me to request assistance. As a French citizen, I was a frequent guest at the French consulate in Dubai,” Durov said.
“A while ago, when asked, I personally helped them establish a hotline with Telegram to deal with the threat of terrorism in France.”
Durov said that balancing security and privacy on a platform with such a large and geographically diverse user base was a challenge and that the platform had left several countries where the regulatory environment was too restrictive.
“When Russia demanded we hand over ‘encryption keys’ to enable surveillance, we refused – and Telegram got banned in Russia. When Iran demanded we block channels of peaceful protesters, we refused – and Telegram got banned in Iran,” Durov said.
“We are prepared to leave markets that aren’t compatible with our principles, because we are not doing this for money.”
Durov’s statement regarding leaving Russia is somewhat misleading, however. The platform was banned by a Russian court in April 2018, but it has remained widely available despite some disruptions.
In April 2022, Russia’s government used Telegram to help spread COVID-19 information, and Roskomnadzor – the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media – lifted the ban two months later after the platform agreed to assist with investigations into extremism.
At the time, Durov said his developers had determined a way to “catch and delete extremist and terrorist content”.
Durov went on to add in his Friday post that Telegram has always striven to deal with problematic content.
“All of that does not mean Telegram is perfect. Even the fact that authorities could be confused by where to send requests is something that we should improve. But the claims in some media that Telegram is some sort of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue,” Durov said.
“We take down millions of harmful posts and channels every day. We publish daily transparency reports. We have direct hotlines with NGOs to process urgent moderation requests faster.”
Yet the fact remains that many illegal activities are committed and shared via Telegram every day. It is a common place for hacktivists to talk up their campaigns using hashtags linking them to other groups, for hackers to share data stolen from companies around the world, and for malware developers to sell their programs at bargain prices.
It remains to be seen just how much of this activity will be actively curtailed.
Durov is currently facing six charges related to content moderation on Telegram, including “managing an online platform ‘in order to enable an illegal transaction in organised group’, and refusal to cooperate with law enforcement authorities”.
David Hollingworth has been writing about technology for over 20 years, and has worked for a range of print and online titles in his career. He is enjoying getting to grips with cyber security, especially when it lets him talk about Lego.
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