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A phone rests on a computer showing the Australian eSafety web page in Sydney, Thursday, July 30, 2026.<\/p>\n
Rick Rycroft\/AP Photo\/Rick Rycroft<\/p>\n
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant addresses the National Press Club in Canberra, on June 24, 2025. (Lukas Coch\/AAP Image via AP)<\/p>\n
LUKAS COCH\/LUKAS COCH\/AAP via AP<\/p>\n
The app Telegram, a popular messenger app in Russia restricted by authorities, is shown on a smartphone in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday, July 29, 2026.<\/p>\n
AP Photo\/undefined<\/p>\n
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) \u2014 Australia\u2019s online safety watchdog has filed legal action against messaging app Telegram, saying the platform failed to remove extremist content including videos of white supremacist mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and the New Zealand city of Christchurch as well as Islamic State group beheadings.<\/p>\n
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The United Arab Emirates-based app, which reports having 1 billion users worldwide, faces a fine of up to 54.6 million Australian dollars ($38 million) if convicted in the Australian Federal Court for \u201calleged failure to detect and remove pro-terror material,\u201d eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said Thursday.<\/p>\n
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The civil action is a test of Australia’s 2021 law requiring tech platforms to work to keep illegal and pro-terrorism material off their networks.<\/p>\n
Telegram denied the claims. \u201cWe reject these allegations and will contest them in court,\u201d a spokesperson said in a written statement sent on Telegram.<\/p>\n
Regulator says app must take responsibility<\/p>\n
The platform is one of the world’s most popular messaging apps. The Australian regulator is taking issue with what’s shared in group chats of up to 200 people and channels with unlimited reach.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThis case concerns content linked to some of the most notorious acts of known extremist violence in recent history, including material associated with the Christchurch and Buffalo terror attacks,\u201d Inman Grant said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe allege that this content remained accessible on the service long after Telegram had been put on notice,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The crimes cited by Inman Grant were ideologically-driven massacres performed for online audiences. Years later, digital artifacts of the massacres are still confounding regulators, who fear the power of videos and so-called manifestos to radicalize others.<\/p>\n
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In Buffalo in 2022, an American white supremacist livestreamed on Twitch part of a shooting at a supermarket in which he killed 10 Black people. He cited among his motivations the crimes of an Australian white supremacist who in 2019 livestreamed on Facebook a shooting at two Christchurch mosques, where he murdered 51 Muslim worshippers.<\/p>\n
Telegram channels established after these and other hate-fueled crimes were populated by users who endorsed the killers and shared videos and other content from the massacres. The Australian watchdog’s claim, filed to the federal court Wednesday, said the unlimited broadcast size of Telegram channels meant the app must take responsibility for culling harmful material.<\/p>\n
Telegram says it blocks ‘terrorist-related communities’<\/p>\n
The messaging app’s statement said that the platform’s \u201cextensive anti-terrorism efforts are well-documented,” adding a link to its published figures recording blocked content and channels. More than 150,000 \u201cterrorist-related communities\u201d have been blocked from the platform this year, according to the figures.<\/p>\n
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Inman Grant said eSafety began urging Telegram to comply with its own policies in March 2024, but the platform had been \u201cnon-responsive\u201d for months.<\/p>\n
The Australian official said that changed after France arrested Telegram\u2019s Russian billionaire founder and CEO Pavel Durov in August 2024 over allegations that his platform was being used for illegal activity, including drug trafficking and the distribution of images of child sexual abuse. He was released after four days of questioning on bail of 5 million euros ($5.7 million).<\/p>\n
Telegram had “become more compliant initially with us and with other regulators after France took action against the company,\u201d Inman Grant said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’ve still kept a permissive hosting environment for terrorist content,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
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The Australian court case also related to IS beheadings and other \u201chorrific material used for propaganda and for radicalization,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen platforms are alerted to terrorist content, they must act,\u201d Inman Grant said.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Russia\u2019s Federal Security Service accused Durov of aiding what it called terrorist activities. The service also said it was adding Durov\u2019s name to international wanted lists.<\/p>\n
Telegram said in its statement supplied to The Associated Press on Thursday that it is committed to protecting user privacy and human rights such as freedom of speech and assembly. It said it had played a prominent role in pro-democracy movements around the world, including in Iran, Russia, Belarus, Myanmar and Hong Kong.<\/p>\n
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Graham-McLay reported from Wellington, New Zealand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A phone rests on a computer showing the Australian eSafety web page in Sydney, Thursday, July 30, 2026.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":968603,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,4740,17546,150924,68909,23133,184754,184755,157,184749,184750,184751,326570,351440,324520,7202,7203,388952,358,3187,10317,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-968602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-america","tag-australia","tag-buffalo","tag-christchurch","tag-julie-inman-grant","tag-new-zealand","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100373-mc-complete-state-national","tag-pavel-durov","tag-product-30597-ap-business-news-f-wire","tag-product-30598-ap-national-news-report-a-wire","tag-product-31995-ap-online-general-financial-business-news","tag-product-31997-ap-online-asia-news","tag-product-32005-ap-online-high-tech-news","tag-product-46986-ap-online-top-stories","tag-san-antonio","tag-sanantonio","tag-telegram-australia-legal-action-terrorist-buffalo-christchurch","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-united-arab-emirates","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=968602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968602\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/968603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=968602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=968602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=968602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}