• by Colin Kirkland , October 13, 2023

In response to the war between Hamas and Israel, Pavel Durov, the CEO of encrypted social messaging platform Telegram, has posted a defense of how his app is handling controversial content. Durov has announced that Telegram won’t be taking down sensitive war-related coverage, citing the complexities of its effects on users’ lives and the needful spread of information. 

“Every day, Telegram's moderators and AI tools remove millions of obviously harmful content from our public platform. However, tackling war-related coverage is seldom obvious,” Durov wrote, leaving out what Telegram considers “obviously harmful” separate from “war-related coverage.”

“Earlier this week, Hamas used Telegram to warn civilians in Ashkelon to leave the area ahead of their missile strikes,” Durov continued. “Would shutting down their channel help save lives — or would it endanger more lives?”

Durov’s statement comes at a time when leading social platforms are being investigated by regulators over their handling of graphic content and misinformation circulating about the ongoing war. 

The European Union has issued recent warnings to X, Meta, and TikTok on the subject, with Thierry Breton, the bloc’s internal market commissioner, sending and posting letters to both X-owner Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg about their handling of sensitive war-related content. 

After warning X, the EU sent Musk a formal request for additional information under the Digital Services Act about the spreading of illegal content and disinformation, specifically terrorist and violent content and hate speech.  

A day after the fighting in Israel began, Musk posted on his app that his followers should trust X more than mainstream media, recommending two accounts that have been flagged for spreading false news. Musk deleted the post after it was seen by millions.

In his post, Durov attempted to set Telegram apart from these other social-media platforms.

“Unlike other apps that algorithmically promote shocking content to unsuspecting people, on Telegram, users receive only the content to which they specifically subscribed,” he wrote. “As such, it's unlikely that Telegram channels can be used to significantly amplify propaganda. Instead, they serve as a unique source of first-hand information for researchers, journalists, and fact-checkers.”

But Telegram has received widespread criticism for its hands-off approach to content moderation, with The New York Times writing this week that the app “does virtually no content moderation.” 

As Hamas’ attacks continued in the initial days of their war on Israel, those affiliated with the terrorist group posted graphic and unedited videos to Telegram. The platform even hosts a Hamas channel that posts grisly footage to over 100,000 subscribers, some of which has been reposted to X. 

“While it would be easy for us to destroy this source of information, doing so risks exacerbating an already dire situation,” Durov wrote in his statement, while noting that in the first days after the Hamas attack, “hundreds of thousands” of new users from Israel and Palestinian Territories signed up for Telegram.