Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has announced that the messaging app will improve moderation on the platform and has removed some features that have been used for illegal activities.
The app’s founder revealed the changes on Friday, hours after calling his arrest by French authorities last month “wrong.” Durov has since been charged with allegedly enabling criminal activity on the app.
In a Post on XHe said the messaging app was “committed to turning moderation on Telegram from an area of criticism to one of praise.”
The changes announced by Durov included removing the app’s “people nearby” feature, which he said had “issues with bots and scammers,” and replacing it with “businesses nearby,” which features legitimate businesses; and disabling media uploads to the app’s blogging tool, Telegraph, which Durov said was being “misused by anonymous actors.”
The Verge, a tech news site, also reported that Telegram removed references on its FAQ page to the fact that private chats were protected and that requests to moderate them would not be processed. A spokesperson told the site that the app’s source code had not changed, but that users could report a new chat to moderators.
Durov added that Telegram’s nearly 1 billion users had been let down by a minority.
The 39-year-old, who was born in Russia and also has French citizenship, was arrested in France in August as part of an investigation into crimes related to child sexual abuse images, drug trafficking and fraudulent transactions associated with the app.
“While 99.999% of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001% involved in illicit activities creates a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our nearly one billion users at risk,” he said.
Durov added that Telegram had reached 10 million paying subscribers.
Durov posted the post on X after using his Telegram channel to make his first public comments since his arrest last month. He called his arrest “wrong” and denied any suggestion that the app was a “lawless paradise.”
Durov said the investigation into the app was surprising because French authorities had access to a “hotline” he had helped set up and could have contacted Telegram’s EU representative at any time.
“If a country is dissatisfied with an internet service, the standard practice is to take legal action against the service itself,” he wrote. “Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to accuse a CEO of crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is the wrong approach.”
Telegram, he said, is not perfect, but he denied any abuse associated with the app.
He added: “But the claims by some media outlets that Telegram is some kind of lawless paradise are absolutely false. We remove millions of harmful posts and channels every day.”
Durov, who is worth $9 billion, avoided jail before the case was heard on bail of 5 million euros. He was released on condition that he report to a police station twice a week and remain in France.
On Friday, Moscow officials confirmed earlier reports that Durov had rejected offers of diplomatic assistance from Russia following his arrest.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, said Russian diplomats in Paris had taken all “necessary actions” regarding Durov’s detention, but he had rejected any offer of diplomatic help.
“If you have any questions about Durov’s decisions on which side he prioritizes in this matter, please contact his lawyers,” Zakharova told RTVI.
Durov also holds Emirati and Saint Kitts and Nevis citizenship.
His arrest has raised tensions between Russia and France, with some lawmakers in Moscow saying Paris was trying to pressure the Telegram founder into handing over the app’s encryption keys to Western intelligence agencies.
Earlier this week, Vladimir Putin expressed surprise at France’s actions against Durov, calling them “selective in nature.” In his first public comments on Durov since his arrest, the Russian president said he had met the Telegram founder only once, “years ago,” and that they had not maintained contact.