Messaging platform Telegram became prominent for its stance on freedom of expression. Now, the company is changing its stance after its CEO Pavel Durov was arrested in France last month.
The Telegram CEO was detained and forbidden to travel outside France as he faces charges including “enabling illegal transactions” within the platform.
Dirov stayed firm with Telegram’s policies regarding free speech and not restricting its users, which resulted in him facing another charge for not cooperating with authorities.
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To show support to Durov, the downloads for Telegram spiked and quickly became the second most popular social app on the App Store in the United States. Downloads have also surged in other parts of the world.
However, it appears that Telegram has started to cave. First, the company has launched a new way to report “illegal content.” Then, Telegram quietly removed a part of its FAQ section which says that they do not monitor conversations by users.
Now, Durov has directly stated that Telegram will comply with legal requests from authorities and provide them with users’ mobile numbers and IP addresses when needed. They are also implementing new AI monitoring tools to help fight the said illegal content.
They also have a human team that will monitor the platform and remove problematic content.