Wednesday, December 15, 2021
Complete shutdown against hatred?
Authorities face the Telegram dilemma
While the corona protests are radicalizing, the messenger service Telegram is targeting the German judicial authorities. There are many ways to curb hatred and agitation. They range from switching off to fine warnings. App stores could play an important role.
Once praised as a means of communication for the democratic movements in Iran and Belarus, now in the sights of the German judiciary: the Telegram messenger service is currently under massive criticism in Germany and other countries as a platform for right-wing extremists and radical opponents of corona measures. Hatred and agitation are spread through him. Only in the morning did the police search objects belonging to members of a chat group who had been harboring plans to murder the Saxon Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer on Telegram.
Who is behind Telegram?
The young Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durow founded Telegram in 2013 together with his brother. Durov was already the founder and head of Russia’s most popular online network, UK. Under pressure from the Russian authorities, he had to leave VK to a Putin confidante and left his home country. Among other things, he worked from Berlin and London on the development of the platform.
The Telegram app is currently based in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and the parent company in the British Virgin Islands. According to Durow, donors include investment firms in the Emirates, but the financing structures are anything but clear.
What distinguishes Telegram?
The service has been one of the world’s most popular messengers since 2019. According to the company, Telegram had around 500 million active users at the beginning of 2021, current estimates are around 550 million. In a study by the statistical database Statista in November, 22 percent of the Germans surveyed said they used Telegram on their smartphones.
The end-to-end encryption of private messages makes the messenger popular, which makes monitoring much more difficult. In addition, Durow and his company generally reject any cooperation with governments, for example when it comes to regulating content in Messenger.
This is another reason why opposition movements in Iran and Belarus used Telegram to organize protests. But jihadists, right-wing extremists and conspiracy ideologues like Attila Hildmann also use the service for their communication.
How can Telegram be regulated?
The federal government wants to take action against Telegram with the so-called Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG). Since 2017, it has ensured that online networks such as Facebook have to take active action against criminal content on their platforms. Services for individual communication, such as WhatsApp, do not fall under this rule, however.
Telegram has long been seen as such a messenger, even if chat groups can contain up to 200,000 members or are publicly viewable. In April of this year, the Federal Ministry of Justice changed this assessment and for the first time sent two fine warnings within the meaning of the NetzDG to Durow. To date, there is no information on whether Telegram responded to these notices.
Telegram – a lawless area?
“Domestic politicians in Germany are facing a telegram dilemma that they cannot simply solve,” says the head of the digital department of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, Simone Rafael. The only way to get hold of the service is to turn it off completely. “But understandably nobody in democratic Germany wants that,” says Rafael.
However, one leverage could be to include the app stores that distribute the Telegram app, says Tobias Keber, professor of media law. “These gatekeepers could throw Telegram out of the app stores because the Hate Speech service offers a platform without introducing reasonable security mechanisms.”
According to experts, the state also maintains the consistent enforcement of police work in Messenger. For example, the Federal Criminal Police Office reported in November 2020 that it had “taken over and secured” nine illegal marketplaces with a total of 8,000 members on Telegram.