Pavel Durov promised to improve moderation in Telegram
Pavel Durov, who is under investigation in France, published a post stating his intention to shift moderation in the messaging app "from an area of criticism into one of praise" within this year.
"While 99.999% of Telegram users have nothing to do with crime, the 0.001% involved in illicit activities create a bad image for the entire platform, putting the interests of our almost billion users at risk," Durov said.
The founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, announced that the "People Nearby" feature will no longer be available in the app. According to him, less than 0.1% of users used this feature, which allowed finding nearby users and groups. Issues with bots and scammers were the main reasons for its removal.
According to Durov, instead of the "People Nearby" feature, a "Businesses Nearby" feature will be launched, which will list legitimate, verified companies. "These companies will be able to display product catalogs and accept payments seamlessly," the post states.
Pavel Durov also informed that the messenger's administration has disabled the uploading of new media files to Telegraph.
"We’ve also disabled new media uploads to Telegraph, our standalone blogging tool, which seems to have been misused by anonymous actors," he wrote.
Recall, Pavel Durov, the founder of the messaging app Telegram and the social network VKontakte, has been detained by French intelligence services at Paris airport.