Telegram ignored outreach from child safety watchdogs before CEO’s arrest, groups say

Before Telegram’s CEO was arrested in France, the app had gained a reputation for ignoring advocacy groups fighting child exploitation.

Before Telegram’s CEO was arrested in France, the app had gained a reputation for ignoring advocacy groups fighting child exploitation.

Three of those groups, the U.S.-based National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), the Canadian Centre for Child Protection and the U.K.-based Internet Watch Foundation, all told NBC News that their outreach to Telegram about child sexual abuse material, often shorthanded as CSAM, on the platform has largely been ignored.

Pavel Durov, a co-founder and the CEO of Telegram, a messaging and news app that’s widely used in former Soviet countries and has become increasingly popular with the U.S. far right and groups banned from other platforms, remains in the custody of French authorities, who arrested him Saturday. 

The Paris prosecutor, who hasn’t announced charges, said Monday that Durov was arrested as part of an investigation into an unnamed person. The claims against the person include “complicity” in illegal transactions and possessing and distributing child sexual abuse material, the prosecutor said in a statement.

Telegram wrote in a statement on X that it abides by European Union laws. It said that Durov has “nothing to hide” and that it is “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/telegram-ceo-pavel-durov-child-safety-rcna168266

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