Under-fire Telegram app clarifies its moderation following French arrest of CEO

Messaging app Telegram has cleared up wording regarding moderating users’ chats with updates to its FAQ page.

This follows the arrest of Pavel Durov, the app’s founder and CEO, in France on August 25. The company is now being investigated for being complicit in illegal activities on the app.

He wrote in a statement yesterday: “Telegram’s abrupt increase in user count to 950M 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. We’ve already started that process internally, and I will share more details on our progress with you very soon.”

The section of the FAQs that have been altered is under the question “There’s illegal content on Telegram. How do I take it down?” Previously the answer simply was “All Telegram chats and group chats are private amongst their participants. We do not process any requests related to them.”

Now however, it reads: “All Telegram apps have ‘Report’ buttons that let you flag illegal content for our moderators — in just a few taps.”

The earlier sentences still appear under the section “A bot or channel is infringing on my copyright. What do I do?”

The report feature means that users can select a reason for the report and it will then be passed on to moderators.

A Telegram spokesperson told TechCrunch in a statement that users could “always report messages from any group to moderators”. He added that the change in wording is just there to make it “clearer how to report content on Telegram”.

Featured Image: Via Yuri Samoilov on Wikimedia Commons

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