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according to comprehensive russian media reports, on september 5, local time, the founder of the social media platform "telegram", durov, issued a long statement about his arrest and trial in france. it is reported that this is the first statement issued by durov after his arrest in france.

durov said he was interrogated by police for four days after arriving in paris in august. "i was told that i might be personally responsible for the illegal use of the telegram platform by others because the french authorities had not received a response from the telegram platform."

durov first said that the french side actually had many ways to contact the "telegram" platform or him personally. he said he was "surprised" by the position of the french prosecutor's office and said that he had previously used the "telegram" platform to set up a hotline to help deal with terrorist threats in france.

he also said that if any country is unhappy with an online service, the usual approach is to file a lawsuit against the service itself, not the platform owner. "it is a wrong approach to use laws that predate smartphones to prosecute the ceo of a platform for mistakes made on the platform by third parties who use the platform."

durov admitted that it is not easy to strike the right balance between privacy and security. the number of users of the telegram platform has soared to 950 million, making it easier for criminals to abuse the platform, and the telegram platform is already working on improving this aspect.

according to previous reports, durov was arrested at le bourget airport in the suburbs of paris on august 24. he was charged with 12 counts and accused of failing to take measures to curb illegal activities such as fraud, drug trafficking, organized crime, child pornography, and promotion of terrorism on the telegram platform.

french prosecutors later said durov was indicted on august 28 and was released on bail under judicial supervision, but he had to pay a deposit of 5 million euros, report to the police station twice a week and was prohibited from leaving french territory.

durov was born in 1984 and holds multiple nationalities including russian, french and uae. he and his brother nikolay founded the telegram platform in 2013. in 2014, durov left russia. in 2017, he moved to the uae and moved the headquarters of the telegram platform to dubai.

the "telegram" platform is currently one of the most important social platforms used by russian media and russian-speaking users, and is also an important voice for both russia and ukraine in the ukrainian crisis.