CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses child sexual abuse.
Notorious encrypted messaging app Telegram has been slapped with a nearly $1 million penalty over delays in responding to queries regarding any terrorist and child sexual exploitation content on the platform.
Here’s the context: back in March last year, Australia’s eSafety Commissioner gave legally enforceable transparency reporting notices to tech giants like Meta, WhatsApp, Google, Reddit, X, and Telegram, requiring them to respond to queries about their compliance with the agency’s Basic Online Safety Expectations.
While others met the deadline of May 6 2024, it’s understood Telegram didn’t report back with the agency till October 13.
The platform has now been hit with a hefty infringement notice of $957,780 over this 160 day delay.
According to eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, the move’s intended to send a strong message that timely transparency isn’t a voluntary requirement.
“If we want accountability from the tech industry we need much greater transparency,” she said in a statement on Monday.
“These powers give us a look under the hood at just how these platforms are dealing, or not dealing, with a range of serious and egregious online harms which affect Australians.”
A startling report last year by a global intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK, and the US named Telegram as one platform where young people could be accessing extremist propaganda videos.
It suggested youth radicalisation remains a “concerning, escalating and pressing” challenge, with the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) flagging around 20 per cent of its priority counter-terrorism cases involve young people.
eSafety’s Inman Grant remarked the threat posed by terrorist and extremist material shared and promoted online remains very real, highlighting the importance of ensuring there are measures in place to prevent these platforms from being misused.
“The ASIO recently raised Australia’s terror threat level to “probable” and has cited the online radicalisation of young people as a key factor driving this heightened threat,” she said.
“Research and observation have shown us that this material can normalise, desensitise and sometimes radicalise – especially the young who are viewing harmful material online that they cannot unsee.”
Telegram now has 28 days to decide whether to pay the fine, request an extension, or challenge it. If the platform refuses to pay, eSafety could escalate the issue to the Federal Court for further action.
However, Telegram has indicated it is pushing back, telling Reuters it had fully responded to all of eSafety’s questions last year.
“The unfair and disproportionate penalty concerns only the response time frame, and we intend to appeal,” it told the publication.
Telegram’s chief executive Pavel Durov was previously arrested in France last year over allegations the platform he created is being used for illegal activity like money laundering, drug trafficking, and sharing child pornography.
He has denied the allegations and remains on bail. In September, he indicated Telegram had removed more “problematic content” and would be more proactive in complying with government requests, per the Guardian.
An eSafety report with the responses from Telegram and the other tech platforms is expected to be released in early March.
Lead image: Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
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