Telegram founder and chief executive Pavel Durov hit out at France for arresting and charging him last month over the publication of extremist and illegal content on the popular messaging app.
In a lengthy post on Telegram early on Friday, his first comment since his arrest, Durov suggested that he shouldn't have been targeted personally and that French authorities should have approached his company with their complaints rather than detaining him.
He still promised to step up efforts to fight criminality on the messaging app, after French authorities handed him preliminary charges for allegedly allowing the platform's use for criminal activity.
French investigators detained Durov at Le Bourget airport outside Paris in late August and questioned him for four days as part of a sweeping probe opened earlier this year.
Released on 5 million euros ($5.5 million) bail, Durov has to report to a police station twice a week. Russia-born, he has amassed multiple citizenships, including French.
French allegations against Durov include that Telegram is used for child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking and that the platform refused to share information or documents with investigators when required by law.
Durov said it was "surprising" he was being held responsible for other people's content.
"Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a misguided approach," he said.
"Building technology is hard enough as it is. No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools."
Telegram, he said, was not perfect, but he denied any abuse associated with the app.
"But the claims in some media that Telegram is some sort of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue," he wrote. "We take down millions of harmful posts and channels every day."
In his post, Durov said that while in police detention, "I was told I may be personally responsible for other people’s illegal use of Telegram, because the French authorities didn’t receive responses from Telegram."
"This was surprising for several reasons,” he added.
Durov said Telegram has an official representative in the European Union who replies to EU requests, with a public email address.
Telegram's website informs users that they can contact the app through a bot and includes a link to report illegal content. It also includes an email address and phone number for "competent authorities of the EU and EU members” to use.
"If you are not a competent EU or EU member authority, your request will not be processed,” it says.
In his post, Durov said, "French authorities had numerous ways to reach me to request assistance." He said he also had previously worked with them to "establish a hotline with Telegram to deal with the threat of terrorism in France.”
"If a country is unhappy with an internet service, the established practice is to start a legal action against the service itself,” he said.
But striking a more conciliatory tone at the end of his message, Durov said Telegram's soaring user numbers – which he now put at 950 million worldwide – "caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform."
"That's why I made it my personal goal to ensure we significantly improve things in this regard," he said, adding that this was being worked out "internally" and more details would be shared in the future.
"I hope that the events of August will result in making Telegram – and the social networking industry as a whole – safer and stronger."
He said that when Telegram could not agree on the "right balance between privacy and security" with local regulators then "we are ready to leave that country."
Durov, 39, has received support from fellow tech tycoon and chief executive of X, Elon Musk, who posted comments under the hashtag #FreePavel.
An enigmatic figure who rarely speaks in public, Durov is a citizen of Russia, France and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), where Telegram is based.
Forbes magazine estimates his current fortune at $15.5 billion, though he proudly promotes the virtues of an ascetic life that includes ice baths and not drinking alcohol or coffee.
