How Telegram app has become a breeding ground for illegal activities?
Telegram is being used widely for criminal practices such as to spread propaganda and hate by terrorist groups, selling premium ip of Media and e-learning platforms and spreading illegal pornography containing child porn other very heinous acts
Telegram Messenger is a popular mobile chat app used by millions across the world. It has officially 1 billion + app installs. Google playstore shows it as the 6th top free communication app. It has raised a total of $2.7B in funding over 2 rounds.
Even though the app started out as any other communication app, but it's use case has widely shifted. Lately, Telegram is being used widely for criminal practices such as to spread propaganda and hate by terrorist groups, selling premium ip of Media and e-learning platforms and spreading illegal pornography containing child porn other very heinous acts
Telegram has become the top platform for :
- Terrorist secret communication.
- Sharing child pornography and links to child porn sites.
- Piracy of premium paid courses and movies.
Surprisingly, the reason of telegram’s massive popularity is not some core innovation or cool feature, it is all about promoting illegal activities through its 3 core feature/services which seems to have been created intentionally for these purposes.
- Anonymity of the user is maintained regardless of any illegal activities they may be involved and the anonymity is still maintained even after being forced by govt. authorities.
- Allowing searching groups by title, so that anyone in world can search and join a group where illegal activities are being done (e.g Child Pornography , piracy of paid movies, courses, secretive messaging about illegal activities, child). Such things can not happen on whatsapp or most other chat apps.
- Intentionally poor response to takedown requests from copyright owners and allowing multiple groups to be made by same person.
Here are the news articles about illegal activities and cases which people have filed on telegram for such illegal things.
1. Terrorist Groups relying on telegram for communication
ISIS Terrorists on Telegram, News Article , ISIS Terrorists on Telegram, News Article 2
It states “The ISIS members behind the 2015 Paris attacks used Telegram to spread propaganda. ISIS also used the app to recruit the perpetrators of the Christmas market attack in Berlin last year and claim credit for the massacre. More recently, a Turkish prosecutor found that the shooter behind the New Year’s Eve attack at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul used Telegram to receive directions for it from an ISIS leader in Raqqa.”
JEM group of Terrorists on Telegram, News Article
2. Child Pornography shared in telegram groups
Apple takes down telegram temporarily due to Child Porn, News Article
Porn issue with Telegram, News Article
Above article mentions “A combination of its architecture, global jurisdiction, and content moderation policies make Telegram the perfect place for spreading revenge porn."
3. Course and Movie piracy on Telegram groups
Telegram is number one enemy of premium course and movie platforms. Telegram has surpassed torrent and any other platform in spreading video and other content piracy.
Talking particularly about India, courses in field of government exams like UPSC, SSC are the most pirated ones.
In Telegram you can search any group by title and just join it, this makes it easy for you to find a join any group of your interests, which can be child pornography, spreading hate, terrorism, leaking pirated content and more. Also, if you report the videos in group, they ignore many times, and even when they reply and take down the group; the same user can make new group and they take no new action from preventing the user from doing so. Their search by title, anonymity feature and allowing same person to make new piracy groups; all this has lead to rampant piracy of premium course videos.
There have been many court cases related to this past, as listed below, but the problem still continues to increase. Even if you somehow through a lengthy court trial manage to take a course down, the pirates can easily make another group for the same activity and spread it among the users. Making the whole process of trial and takedown unfruitful.
Delhi piracy case on Telegram, News Article
Delhi High court verdict on piracy on Telegram , Another news article on same piracy issue
How telegram is fueling TV content piracy, News article
Test prep content piracy on telegram, news article
Movie content piracy on Telegram, News article
What should government do about Telegram ?
- App Ban - It is evident from so many cases above, that telegram is intentionally shaping its app to promote illegal activities. A total ban on telegram app in India is the only solution forward, it is needed for national security, prevent spread of child porn and to prevent video piracy. Similar action has been taken by other countries like Brazil in past.
- Identity of criminals revealed - Also for all existing cases of illegal content sharing, governments or courts should force telegram to reveal the phone number and IP address of the criminal. Telegram should setup a support mechanism which responds positively and quickly to content owner and cyber authorities requests to share the user details of the criminal account in question.
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Comments (1)
Thank you for the interesting article. To be honest, I don't understand how this can happen? Telegram is not an anonymous application, then how is there so much illegal content in it? Also, I was previously skeptical about Web-inspired apps. However, I realized that they have nothing to do with the darknet, for example. Therefore, I am delighted with the Utopia p2p ecosystem https://u.is/en/ , which guarantees data security and anonymity, as well as freedom of speech to every user.