PARIS — Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov promised to step up efforts to fight criminality on the messaging app, his first public comments since French authorities handed him preliminary charges for allegedly allowing the platform’s use for criminal activity.

In a Telegram post late Thursday, Durov defended himself against the French judicial investigation, suggesting that he shouldn’t have been targeted personally.

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“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,” the post 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.”

Read More: What to Know About Telegram Founder Pavel Durov

While insisting that Telegram is not “some sort of anarchic paradise,” Durov said surging numbers of Telegram users “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,” he said.

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 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.

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.

He 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.

LONDON — The European Union says blue checkmarks from Elon Musk’s X are deceptive and that the online platform falls short on transparency and accountability requirements in the first charges against a tech company since the bloc’s new social media regulations took effect.

The European Commission outlined on Friday the preliminary findings from its investigation into X, formerly known as Twitter, under the 27-nation bloc’s Digital Services Act.

The rulebook, also known as the DSA, is a sweeping set of regulations that requires platforms to take more responsibility for protecting users and cleaning up their sites.

Regulators took aim at X’s blue checks, saying they constitute “dark patterns” that are not in line with industry best practice and can be used by malicious actors to deceive users.

After Musk bought the site in 2022, it started issuing the verification marks to anyone who paid $8 per month for one. Before Musk’s acquisition, they mirrored verification badges common on social media and were largely reserved for celebrities, politicians and other influential accounts.

BEIJING — A driverless ride-hailing car in China hit a pedestrian, and people on social media are taking the carmaker’s side, because the person was reportedly crossing against the light.

The operator of the vehicle, Chinese tech giant Baidu, said in a statement to Chinese media that the car began moving when the light turned green and had minor contact with the pedestrian. The person was taken to a hospital where an examination found no obvious external injuries, Baidu said.

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The incident on Sunday in the city of Wuhan highlights the challenge that autonomous driving faces in complex situations, the Chinese financial news outlet Yicai said. It quoted an expert saying the technology may have limitations when dealing with unconventional behavior such as other vehicles or pedestrians that violate traffic laws.

Images posted online show a person sitting on the street in front of the driverless car with its rooftop sensors. Comments on social media largely supported Baidu, pointing out that the pedestrian had broken the law, the English-language Shanghai Daily newspaper said in a post on X.

A driverless taxi operated by #Baidu’s autonomous driving platform Apollo Go collided with a pedestrian in Wuhan on Jul 7. Baidu confirmed the incident, saying the woman crossed the street on a red light. Netizens largely supported Baidu, pointing out that the pedestrian broke… pic.twitter.com/7NcAqKucpx

— Shanghai Daily (@shanghaidaily) July 9, 2024

Beijing-based search-engine and artificial intelligence company Baidu is a leader in the development of autonomous driving in China. Its largest “robotaxi” operation, with a fleet of 300 cars, is in Wuhan, a major city in central China that had the world’s first major outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020.

Apollo Go, as the ride-hailing service is called, also operates in more limited parts of three other Chinese cities—Beijing, Shenzhen and Chongqing. The company launched the sixth-generation of its driverless taxi in May, saying it had brought the unit cost down by more than half to under $30,000.

FORDYCE, Ark. — Two people were killed and six wounded, including one law enforcement officer, when a shooter opened fire Friday at a grocery store in Arkansas, police said.

The shooting occurred at the Mad Butcher grocery store in Fordyce. The suspected shooter was critically injured after being shot by police, Arkansas State Police said. An officer was among those shot but did not have life-threatening injuries.

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Police did not immediately say whether shooting occurred inside or outside the store.

Fordyce is a city of about 3,200 people located 65 miles (104 kilometers) south of Little Rock.

Video posted on social media showed at least one person lying in the parking lot, while another captured multiple gunshots ringing out.

Images from TV reporters on the scene showed a slew of bullet holes in the grocery store’s window. In video footage, local and state agencies could be seen responding to the scene, with at least one medical helicopter landing nearby.

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she had been briefed on the shooting.

“I am thankful to law enforcement and first responders for their quick and heroic action to save lives,” Sanders posted on the social media platform X. “My prayers are with the victims and all those impacted by this.”

David Rodriguez, 58, had stopped at his local gas station in Fordyce to fill up his car when he heard what he thought were fireworks from a nearby vendor’s stand.

“We heard a few little pops,” he said.

He then saw people running from the Mad Butcher grocery store into the parking lot, and one person lying on the ground. He began recording video with his phone before the gunfire escalated.

“The police started to show up, and then there was massive gunfire and ambulances pulling up,” he said. “The bullets were just flying.”