Paris | Pavel Durov, the entrepreneur who founded online communications tool Telegram, was charged on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) in France with a wide range of crimes related to illicit activity on the app – and barred from leaving the country.

It was a rare move by legal authorities to hold a top executive personally liable for the behaviour of users on a major messaging platform, escalating the debate over the role of technology companies in online speech and the limits of their responsibility.