Thousands of child abuse images detected on Telegram

Web watchdog says app never responded to reports, as founder charged for allegedly failing to tackle abuse

A British internet watchdog that polices the web for child abuse has reported thousands of illegal images to Telegram over the past two years. 
The Cambridge-based Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which has a government mandate to hunt down and remove illegal abuse images online, said it had flagged 2,294 images on Telegram since 2022.
However, a spokesman said it had never received a response from Telegram to one of its reports, making it difficult to confirm whether the app had taken action to remove the posts.
Some of the images included children as young as two years old. A third of the reported content included images or videos rated as category A, the worst forms of abuse.
Telegram said it removed tens of thousands of groups and channels sharing child abuse content each month. In August, it claimed to have removed 50,000 such groups.
However, the vast majority of Telegram’s groups are private and the company has said it would refuse to delete content shared within groups. “All Telegram chats and groups are private territory of their respective participants,” a company blog reads. “We do not perform any requests related to them.”
It said it would remove public channels that were illegal but that the app had “disclosed zero bytes of data to third parties, including governments”.
Telegram’s founder, the Russian-born entrepreneur Pavel Durov, faces charges in France for alleged complicity in failing to tackle abuse on the app.
The messaging app is used by more than 950m people and is known for its light-touch approach to moderation and a refusal to comply with demands for censorship.
Mr Durov was arrested a week ago in Paris and charged on Wednesday over the company’s moderation of illegal child abuse content, drug trafficking and organised crime.
French prosecutors have accused Telegram of a “near complete absence” of responses to court demands and police requests to properly address concerns over posts on the app.
The billionaire faces a potential 10-year prison sentence over the charges. He has been released with bail set at €5m (£4.2m). A lawyer for Mr Durov called the charges “absurd”.
His app has also been accused of failing to assist independent efforts to crack down on online child abuse and refusing to sign up to or engage with industry watchdogs working to police such illegal content.
The Dubai-based messaging service is not a member of the CyberTipline, an initiative run by the US-based National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). It has also refused to work with Britain’s IWF.
According to the tip line’s data, WhatsApp reported more than 1.3m pieces of abuse content in 2023. Snapchat reported 713,000. Telegram disclosed none. 
Heidi Kempster, deputy chief executive of the IWF, said: “We work with some of the biggest tech companies and platforms, and many are proactive in making sure they are doing their best to stop criminals from sharing this material.
“There are tried and tested methods to stop platforms being abused this way, methods which do not compromise users’ privacy or experience. Choosing not to use them is a conscious decision. 
“We have the tools and, although we have reached out to Telegram, they are not currently using any of them. There is so much more they could be doing now to keep their service safe.”
An IWF spokesman said it had detected and actioned 480 pieces of child abuse content on Telegram so far in 2024, compared to 538 over the course of 2023. The spokesman said it expected to “exceed last year’s total on this platform before the year is over”.
John Shehan, of NCMEC, told NBC News last week: “Telegram is truly in a league of their own as far as their lack of content moderation or even interest in preventing child sexual exploitation.”
The arrest of Mr Durov has sent shockwaves throughout the technology industry, representing a major escalation of Western efforts to crack down on social media companies. 
The 39-year-old has been barred from leaving France and must report to a police station on a weekly basis. 
The billionaire founded Telegram in 2013 with a focus on free speech. The Russian-born entrepreneur, nicknamed Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg, was forced out of the social media giant he founded, VK, by the Kremlin. 
Despite this, Russia has protested against his arrest in France. A Kremlin spokesman dubbed the arrest “political persecution”.
Telegram has denied wrongdoing and insisted it complied with EU laws on social media. “It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform,” the company said. 
Telegram was contacted for comment.