In the two weeks since an armed insurrection on the US Capitol left five people dead, messaging platform Telegram has removed “hundreds” of public calls for violence.
“Telegram welcomes peaceful debate and protest, but our terms of service explicitly prohibit distributing public calls to violence,” CEO Pavel Durov wrote in a Monday post.
“In the last seven years, we’ve consistently enforced this rule globally,” he continued, citing previous implementation in Belarus, Iran, Thailand, and Hong Kong. “Civil rights movements all over the world rely on Telegram in order to stand up for human rights without resorting to inflicting harm.”
And while the United States represents a drop in the ocean of Telegram’s international user base (less than 2%), the country has already consumed much of the firm’s resources: Following an increase in reports about US-related public activity on the platform early this month, the moderation team quickly squashed local channels advocating aggression.
“Thanks to these efforts, last week our moderators blocked and shut down hundreds of public calls for violence that could’ve otherwise reached tens of thousands of subscribers,” Durov said. “The team continues to process reports from users in addition to proactively removing content that directly incites violence.”
“I would like to thank everyone who reported public channels that crossed the line. Keep it up,” Durov added. “We value each of your reports. Telegram welcomes political debate coming from all sides of the political spectrum—but will act swiftly to stop those who incite people to inflict harm on others.”
Telegram has been a popular choice for those fleeing WhatsApp after the Facebook-owned service recently began alerting folks to a privacy policy change that goes into effect May 15. The cloud-based instant messaging software, however, comes with some caveats, like end-to-end encryption being opt in and only applying to user-to-user communication.
