Telegram is accused of promoting terrorism and the sale of illicit drugs, among other things, but some claim it has also been essential in pro-democracy protests.
Telegram has had problems with governments around the world to disseminate disinformation and favor the extremism.
Now, the app is once again under harsh criticism after its co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov out arrested near Paris in the framework of an investigation into alleged crimes related to the messaging application, such as racketeering and the drug trafficking.
“Telegram CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently through Europe. “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for the abuse of that platform,” Telegram wrote in a blog post after the arrest.
The messaging application has already had problems in many countrieswho have banned it or attempted to crack down on it for similar reasons or because of government restrictions on press freedom.
In total, 31 countries have banned the Telegram platform since 2015whether temporarily or permanently, affecting more than 3 billion people worldwide, according to Surfshark and Netblocks.
These are some of the countries in which Telegram has had problems.
Spain
The Spanish They were briefly left without Telegram in March, after a judge banned the application after four of the country’s main media groups (Mediaset, Atresmedia, Movistar and Egeda) reported that the application spread contents generated by them and protected by copyright without permission of the creators.
The judge had asked Telegram to submit certain information for the case in July 2023 and ordered the app to be blocked after the company did not respond. But the sentence was overturned after it was criticized that it was disproportionate and could cause harm to millions of users.
United Kingdom
Recently, Telegram was used for plan and coordinate anti-immigrant riots in it United Kingdom at the beginning of August. This occurred after three girls were murdered in the north of England and the Telegram channels were used by extremists to spread hatred against muslims and share information about locations and targets of attacks.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared that he would take drastic measures against the social media platforms that fanned the fire of the riots, but so far no action has been taken against Telegram. Starmer had already called for “tough and effective sanctions” against the company in 2021.
Norway
The country considers the application a possible threat to national security and in March 2023 it banned both Telegram and TikTok for ministers, secretaries of state and political advisors on work devices.
“In its open threat assessment ‘Focus 2023’, the intelligence service points to Russia and China like the main threat actors against Norwegian security interests,” said Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl.
“They also point out that the social networks are a favorable scenario for the actors who want to influence in us through disinformation and the fake news“.
Germany
In 2022, Germany considered banning Telegram after the Government discovered that 64 channels potentially violated German hate speech lawslike anti-Semitic conspiracy channels.
Germany imposed a fine of 5 million euros to Telegram operators for violating German law. Telegram said it agreed to cooperate with the German government and removed those videos, as well as those with potentially illegal content in the future.
ADVERTISINGUkraine
Telegram has been the go-to communication app since the beginning of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in early 2022, with the president Volodímir Zelenski heading to the country every dayand has been used on the front line from the battlefields to communicate.
It has also been used by russians in search of information beyond the Kremlin’s message, but also to spread disinformation and potentially hacking military groups.
This has caused Ukraine considers banning Telegram unless the company makes certain changes, such as having an office in Ukraine and removing harmful or false content or users.
Russia
Russia banned Telegram in 2018for two years after co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov failed to comply with requests to hand over information about certain users.
ADVERTISINGBut the ban didn’t have much impact and the app thrived as a news source for many Russians. Despite the temporary ban, government departments as the Russian Foreign Ministry and the national COVID-19 task force have official channels and Telegram.
Belarus
Telegram was a key tool in Belarus to share information about anti-government protests of 2020 and 2021. It was one of the few social media applications that It worked when the country blocked the internet for three days during the presidential elections.
Since the vote, Belarus has published a list of Telegram channels considered extremist and mainly anti-government. If users join them, they risk even seven years in prisonaccording to Amnesty International.
China
Telegram is blocked in china since 2015. Local media reported that the app suffered a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on its server, leading to the censorship of the application.
ADVERTISINGSome experts have claimed that this could be an attack by China to justify blocking the app, as Chinese human rights lawyers use it to criticize the Government and the Chinese Communist Party.
Iran
Telegram carries blocked in Iran since 2018 after the protests that broke out a year earlier, calling for better economic justice in the country. The government blamed Telegram for facilitating the protests and said local apps should be promoted.
Before the ban, half of Iran’s roughly 80 million people were reported to be using Telegram to communicate, but many still use the app passing through a virtual private network (VPN).
India
Just one day after Durov’s arrest, the Indian government declared that he was investigating Telegram for his alleged involvement in various criminal activities and that he would study the possibility of banning it pending the investigation.
ADVERTISINGThe country has seen the application leak several exams and spread child pornography, manipulation of stock prices and extortion. In July, the country’s authorities discovered a stock price manipulation plot why the administrator of a Telegram channel received more than 20,000 euros for manipulating the share prices of a steel sheet manufacturing company.
“One of the most rampant scams on Telegram is the investment fraudin which a user is added to a group and suggested to invest their money in stocks in a fake application that imitates a legitimate stock trading app,” a senior cybercrime official at the company told local media. Delhi Police.
Thailand
Telegram is prohibited in Thailand since 2020 due to his use in anti-government protests that same year, which called for the resignation of former Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, a former army chief who took power in a coup in 2014. Telegram was used to organize protests at short notice.
