Telegram CEO says he was ‘surprised’ by his arrest and interrogation

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov returned to the messaging platform on Thursday, saying in a lengthy post that he was surprised to have been detained and questioned by French authorities less than two weeks ago as part of an investigation that sparked a debate about free expression and criminal activity online.

Durov was arrested at Paris airport amid an investigation into alleged offenses related to criminal activity on Telegram, according to French prosecutors. He was later released from police custody on $5.56 million bail while the investigation continues.

Telegram, which Durov says has 950 million users, is used both as an everyday messaging tool and as a means of circumventing authoritarian governments – but it is also popular with white supremacist groups and ISIS.

The public prosecutor’s office is also investigating Durov for alleged “acts of violence” against his child in Switzerland.

In Thursday’s Telegram post, his first since his arrest, Durov acknowledged that the “abrupt increase” in the app’s user numbers had led to growth problems that had made it easier for criminals to abuse the platform.

“That is why I have made it my personal goal to ensure that we significantly improve things in this regard. We have already started this process internally and I will share with you further details on our progress shortly,” Durov said.

Durov said the purpose of the app is to protect users in authoritarian regimes. Durov noted that the app refused to hand over “encryption keys” to Russia, which led to a ban there. The app was also banned in Iran after it refused to block channels used by protesters, he said.

“We are ready to leave markets that are inconsistent with our principles because we are not doing this for money,” Durov said, adding that the app has left the market in cases where it “could not agree with a country’s regulator on the right balance between privacy and security.”

Durov also denied the French authorities’ attempt to hold him personally liable.

“When a country is unhappy with an internet service, it is common practice to take legal action against the service itself,” he said. “Using pre-smartphone laws to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a misguided approach.”

—CNN’s Antonella Francini, Emmanuel Miculita, Anna Chernova and Zahid Mahmood contributed to this report.

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