On Friday, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov announced that the messaging app would address criticism over its content moderation and remove certain features that had been exploited for illegal activities. This comes after Durov was formally investigated in France for crimes linked to the use of Telegram, including fraud, money laundering, and the distribution of child abuse imagery. He shared the news with his 12.2 million Telegram followers, emphasizing that while the vast majority of users are law-abiding, a small fraction engaged in illicit activities tarnishes the platform’s reputation and threatens the interests of nearly a billion users.

Durov expressed his commitment to transforming Telegram’s moderation practices from a source of criticism to one of commendation but did not provide specific details on how this would be achieved. He did, however, mention that the platform had already disabled new media uploads to a blogging tool that had been misused by anonymous actors. Additionally, the People Nearby feature, which was vulnerable to abuse by bots and scammers, was removed in favor of promoting verified businesses nearby.

These changes come in the wake of Durov’s arrest and subsequent formal investigation in France, which has sparked global debate about the responsibilities of tech companies in moderating content and the legal accountability of platform owners for user activities. Durov’s lawyer criticized the investigation as unjust, asserting that Durov cannot be held responsible for crimes committed by others on the platform.

Katie Harbath, a former Meta executive, commented that while it’s a positive step for Durov to take content moderation seriously, the challenges ahead are likely to be more complex than anticipated.

Telegram also quietly removed a clause from its FAQ, which previously stated that it did not handle reports of illegal content in private chats due to privacy protections. Durov did not address this change but noted that Telegram had surpassed 10 million paid subscribers. He also reiterated that Telegram actively removes millions of harmful posts daily and criticized the French authorities for not directly reaching out to him or the company’s EU representative before launching the investigation.