Telegram CEO makes first public comments since French authorities targeted him and his app

PARIS (AP) — Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov is promising stepped-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, Durov defended himself against the French judicial investigation, suggesting that he personally shouldn’t have been targeted. “Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he …