America News Agency

On his personal Telegram channel, between thank-you, hearts and thumbs-up emojis, Durov denied claims the messaging platform was an "anarchic paradise" and slammed the French accusations as ''misguided.''

"When a country is unhappy with an internet service, the established practice is to take legal action against the service itself. Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to accuse a CEO of crimes committed by third parties on the platform he runs is misguided," Durov said.

The Russian-born tech billionaire acknowledged that Telegram was "not perfect," but said the company had removed millions of posts and was busy fixing protocols to make the platform "safer and more robust."

Telegram has seen significant growth since its founding in 2013. It now has 950 million global users. Durov blamed “growing pains that make it easier for criminals to abuse our platform.”

In a brief Telegram post on Thursday, Durov added details about what happened in the days after he was arrested in Paris in late August.

“When I arrived in Paris last month, I was questioned by the police for four days. I was told that I could be personally responsible for the illegal use of Telegram by others, because the French authorities did not respond to Telegram.”

Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau outlined the sweeping allegations last week, saying Telegram had “almost completely failed to respond to judicial requests.”