Telegram CEO: Shocked by the sudden arrest without warning, French authorities have always had multiple ways to contact Telegram
ChainCatcher news, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov posted on X: "Last month, after arriving in Paris, I was interrogated by the police for four days. I was told that I might be held personally responsible for the illegal use of Telegram by others, as the French authorities had not received a response from Telegram. This is surprising for the following reasons:
Telegram has an official representative in the EU responsible for receiving and responding to EU requests. Its email address is publicly available, and anyone within the EU can find the Telegram EU law enforcement address by searching on Google.
The French authorities have multiple ways to contact me for assistance. As a French citizen, I am a frequent visitor to the French consulate in Dubai. Not long ago, at their request, I personally helped them establish a hotline with Telegram to address the threat of terrorism in France.
If a country is dissatisfied with an internet service, the usual practice is to file a legal lawsuit against the service itself. Using laws from before the smartphone era to accuse a CEO of third-party crimes committed on the platform he manages is a simplistic approach. Developing technological means is already challenging enough. If innovators know they might be held personally responsible for the potential misuse of these tools, they will not develop new tools."
