NewzMELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s online safety watchdog has filed legal action against messaging app Telegram, saying the platform failed to remove extremist content including videos of white supremacist mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and the New Zealand city… “We reject these allegations and will contest them in court,” a spokesperson said in a written statement sent on Telegram.Regulator says app must take responsibilityThe platform is one of the world's most popular messaging apps. The Australian regulator is taking issue with what's shared in group chats of up to 200 people and channels with unlimited reach.“This case concerns content linked to some of the most notorious acts of known extremist violence in recent history, including material associated with the Christchurch and Buffalo terror attacks,” Inman Grant said in a statement.“We allege that this content remained accessible on the service long after Telegram had been put on notice,” she said.The crimes cited by Inman Grant were ideologically-driven massacres performed for online audiences.
Years later, digital artifacts of the massacres are still confounding regulators, who fear the power of videos and so-called manifestos to radicalize others.In Buffalo in 2022, an American white supremacist livestreamed on Twitch part of a shooting at a supermarket in which he killed 10 Black people. He cited among his motivations the crimes of an Australian white supremacist who in 2019 livestreamed on Facebook a shooting at two Christchurch mosques, where he murdered 51 Muslim worshippers.Telegram channels established after these and other hate-fueled crimes were populated by users who endorsed the killers and shared videos and other content from the massacres. The Australian watchdog's claim, filed to the federal court Wednesday, said the unlimited broadcast si…
SYDNEY, July 30 (Reuters) - Australia’s internet regulator said on Thursday it had begun legal action against messaging platform Telegram over alleged failings to tackle pro-terror posts. Australia says videos of terrorist executions and mass shootings weren't removed from Telegram after they were reported. The move comes a day after Russia charged founder Pavel Durov with facilitating terrorist activity.
Telegram told the BBC it rejects the allegations and will contest them in court. Australia’s internet regulator said on Thursday it had begun legal action against messaging platform Telegram over alleged failings to tackle pro-terror posts. The office of the eSafety Commissioner said it had begun action after Telegram failed to remove videos of terrorist executions and mass shootings.
“This case concerns content linked to some of the most notorious acts of known extremist violence in recent history, including material associated with the Christchurch and Buffalo terror attacks,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said in a statement. “We allege that this content remained accessible on the service long after Telegram had been put on notice.” Failure to comply with Australia’s codes and standards could result in civil penalties of up to A$54.6 million ($38 million), the statement said. A spokesperson for Telegram did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Telegram is one of the world’s most downloaded apps, with over 1 billion monthly active users, according to the company. Its founder, Russian-born Pavel Durov, left Russia in 2014, moving himself and the company to Dubai in 2017. The platform has become a critical source of information on Russia’s war in Ukraine and is used widely by officials in Moscow and Kyiv.
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