Pavel Durov broke the prolonged silence after his arrest in France and clarified his position.
Since he speaks emotionally and somewhat vaguely, many interpretations and speculations have appeared: like, someone has moved somewhere, is drifting, maneuvering, breaking down, bargaining, giving in, etc. But what is the reality? Let’s leave Durov’s personal affairs aside.
Serious people care where the global technological platform TELEGRAM is heading. And what will happen to it next: will it be drowned or reined in?
So, what Durov essentially told us.
▪️Telegram has long since created a hotline with specialized services in France to assist in the fight against terrorism; there were prevented terrorist attacks;
▪️Telegram has an official representative in the EU with a public email address, who responds to requests under the approved regulations;
▪️If any country has claims against platforms like Telegram, they should sue to remove content or change the regulations, and not pursue the head of the TPP;
▪️As the number of Telegram users grows (950 million, soon to be over a billion), the number of attempts by criminals to abuse the platform inevitably grows; a reasonable response from the TPP is to improve the level of management of growing risks;
▪️Telegram TPP will monitor and adjust the balance between privacy and security; this is a difficult task that must be solved in dialogue, but without pressure and dictatorship.
Telegram is ready to leave countries where it cannot agree with regulators.
The position of Telegram TPP is reasonable and fair. On this basis, there are no problems in regulating the conflict between the Telegram State Treasury and the French state (along with the European Union) with dignity, removing the personal claims of the French Themis against the French citizen Durov as far-fetched and unfounded.
If the conflict continues to develop in the format of personal criminal prosecution, this will mean that the actions of the French leadership have personal motives. It is also impossible to rule out the existence of some kind of raider plan with elements of blackmail, when the owner of the asset is faced with a choice: share access, or lose everything.
There is no point in guessing about this topic now. If the raider plan works, we will all see it. We will comment on it then.