Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov has made his first appearance in a French court. Durov was arrested in France in August on allegations of Telegram aiding illegal activities. Subsequently, he was charged with multiple counts bordering on the platform’s inability to curb extremist and terrorist content on the application.
Durov was in court with his legal counsels, David-Olivier Kaminski and Christophe Ingrain. According to a source familiar with the happenings in the courtroom, Durov was grilled on the platform’s use for illegal transactions. After the court proceedings, Durov refused to comment on the issues, keeping his faith in the French justice system.
Telegram CEO faces first test
Durov, originally from Russia, naturalized as a French citizen in 2021. The details surrounding the events are related to the Russian government banning his app after he refused to surrender user data. He had also lived in Dubai for years before his legal woes began in France this year. His legal tussle began after he was delayed at the Le Bourget airport on August 24. He was later released on conditional bail of $6 million, with the authorities mandating him not to leave the country till March next year.
On August 28, the Paris prosecutor issued preliminary charges against him, accusing him and his platform of facilitating illicit activities. If the charges stick, the Telegram founder could spend up to 10 years in prison added to the $550,000 fine he will pay. The French authorities began to look into Telegram’s activities in February, before escalating it to a judicial investigation in July, months before the CEO was arrested.
After his arrest, Durov made a controversial decision to announce an initiative that would cover IVF treatments for women under 38 who wish to become pregnant with his sperm. The initiative followed a declaration that Durov made in July, noting that he had donated sperm over the last 15 years, fathering more than 100 children in 12 countries. He also hinted at a plan to open-source his DNA, enabling his children the opportunity to connect.
Telegram ramps up efforts to combat illegal activities
Telegram, on the other hand, has taken steps to combat illegal activities on its platform. The platform announced a partnership with the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a charity with a specialty in identifying and removing child sexual abuse imagery. The move is in line with the platform’s promise to remove illegal content, especially child exploitation material on the app.
The platform will use the charity’s tool to identify, detect, and remove materials related to child sexual exploitation. In its statement, IWF said it had identified thousands of these materials from 2022 till the present. The charity, known for its fight against child exploitation materials, will now offer its help to help Telegram combat the menace. The CEO of IWF Derek Ray-Hill hailed the partnership as a first step of achieving great feats together.
Ray-Hill also said that along the way, it will help the platform prevent and remove the materials from the app. “We look forward to seeing what further steps we can take together to create a world in which the spread of online sexual abuse material is virtually impossible,” he said. Telegram’s head of media and press relations Remi Vaughn noted that the IWF will use its tool to help the platform’s already existing moderation mechanisms.