Durov says Telegram will tackle criticism of how it moderates content

Telegram boss Pavel Durov said on Friday that the messaging app would tackle criticism of its content moderation and remove some features that had been abused for illegal activity.

Durov, who was last week placed under formal investigation in France in connection with the use of Telegram for crimes including fraud, money laundering and sharing images of child sex abuse, announced the move in a message to his 12.2 million subscribers on the platform.

"While 99.999% of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001% involved in illicit activities create a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our almost billion users at risk," the Russian-born tech entrepreneur wrote.

"That’s why this year we are committed to turn moderation on Telegram from an area of criticism into one of praise."

Durov did not spell out in detail how Telegram would achieve that. But he said it had already disabled new media uploads to a standalone blogging tool "which seems to have been misused by anonymous actors."


Reuters