Keep going, there’s nothing to see. This Wednesday, October 2, Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, wanted to clarify certain elements, a week after announcing changes to his moderation policy. Among the important points was that the platform responded to judicial authorities when requests related to illegal comments or behavior.
Telegram finally caught up with the DSA, the European regulation to create a safer network, which stipulates that a social network must respond to legal demands emanating from an “independent” judge, positive or not. But for Pavel Durov, “little has changed.”
Pavel Durov clarifies Telegram rules
The one who was accused of several charges in France spoke on Telegram to clarify several elements.
The first, and probably the one that has caused the most debate, is what Telegram communicates to the authorities. Pavel Durov confirms that his social network could provide the authorities with the IP addresses and telephone numbers of users affected by a legal requisition, but that has been the case since 2018, he emphasizes.
He gives several examples: we learned that Brazil has submitted more than 200 applications in nine months. In India, which is Telegram’s “largest market,” according to Pavel Durov, this figure rises to 6,992 in the same period.
As for Europe, Pavel Durov explains that he has observed an increase in requests for information and specifies that the authorities “have started to request it correctly”, in particular using the DSA. A hint to the accusations against him.
For him, the confusion linked to his message last week on moderation lies in the way in which Telegram has generalized its conditions of use throughout the world: “Our fundamental principles have not changed. We have always wanted to submit to local laws , as long as they do not conflict with our values of freedom and privacy.”
Telegram was, according to Pavel Durov, designed to allow “activists and ordinary people” to be protected against “corrupt governments and corporations.” Therefore, the social network is not a place for “criminals who abuse our platform to avoid justice.”
Source: BFM TV
