Quick Take

Scrutinizing Telegram’s Defense Amid UK Riots

August 12, 2024

The anti-immigrant riots that have swept across the United Kingdom have been prompted in part by false social media accounts blaming an asylum seeker for a stabbing attack that left three children dead in northern England. Besides Elon Musk’s X, which played a central role in the dissemination of false rumors about the perpetrator’s identity and religion, the social media-cum-messaging platform Telegram has emerged as a key venue where far-right provocateurs mobilized for the recent violence.

The Financial Times reported:

UN-backed counterterrorism group Tech Against Terrorism said on Wednesday it was issuing an “urgent alert” regarding the organization of UK riots by far-right extremists using Telegram. It cited the growth of a 15,000-strong Telegram group that it said was now removed, which had shared a list of protest targets, including immigration-related sites. “Telegram’s inadequate moderation of extremist channels is contributing to violence and unrest across the UK,” Tech Against Terrorism said.

In response to reports about its complicity in the violence, Telegram reportedly said that its moderators “are actively monitoring the situation and are removing channels and posts containing calls to violence.” The company elaborated: “Moderators use a combination of proactive monitoring of public parts of the platform, sophisticated AI tools and user reports to ensure content that breaches Telegram’s terms is removed” (emphasis added).

It is important to scrutinize Telegram’s explanation because it points to a gaping oversight in the company’s proactive moderation system. As our Center’s forthcoming report on encrypted messaging platforms will point out, Telegram hosts an extensive web of “private,” albeit non-encrypted, chat groups which can include as many as 200,000 members and are not subject to Telegram’s content policies.

In essence, under Telegram’s policies and enforcement systems, extremist groups with large followings can evade the platform’s moderation simply by designating their groups as “private.” How long Telegram is allowed to remain willfully blind to its role as a facilitator of violence remains to be seen.