Telegram CEO says company will now pay attention to content moderation

Telegram has been under a lot of criticism recently for its alleged failure to moderate content circulating on the platform. Telegram CEO Pavel Durov recently stated that the company would address criticism of its content moderation and may remove some features that have been misused for illegal activities. Durov was arrested last week and questioned on charges related to fraud, money laundering, and the distribution of child pornography.

Pavel Durov wrote in a message to Telegram users: “While 99.999% of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001% involved in illegal activities cast a bad image on the entire platform and endanger the interests of our nearly one billion users. That's why this year we set out to transform moderation on Telegram from an area of ​​criticism to one of praise.”

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What changes will we see? (Expected)

The Telegram chief did not elaborate on the changes the company will be making, but said Telegram has already disabled new media uploads to a standalone blogging tool “that appears to have been abused by anonymous actors.” Apart from that, the company has also removed a little-used People Nearby feature that “had issues with bots and scammers” and instead presents legitimate, verified businesses near users.

Notably, these are the first changes the tech giant has announced since his arrest.

Is it absurd to accuse the Telegram boss of crimes committed by users?

Durov's lawyer said it was absurd to investigate the Telegram boss in connection with crimes committed by users of the app.

Durov had previously admitted in a post that Telegram was not perfect, but also said: “The claims in some media that Telegram is some kind of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue. We delete millions of malicious posts and channels every day.”

Durov said he was quite surprised by the French investigation, as authorities there could easily have contacted Telegram's EU representative or Durov himself to raise their concerns. He said: “When a country is dissatisfied with an internet service, it is common practice to take legal action against the service itself.”