“Claims by some media outlets that Telegram is some kind of lawless paradise are completely false. We remove millions of dangerous messages and channels every day. We publish daily transparency reports. We have contact lines with NGOs so we can act quickly on urgent requests for moderation.”
In a message posted on Thursday, September 5, the first since his arrest and indictment by the French justice system, Pavel Durov, founder and CEO of Telegram, says he doesn’t understand. Why is the French justice system accusing him of complicity with people who used his platform to distribute illegal content? Telegram moderates content, it swears by it, and it even moderates a lot.
However, it is enough to open the application, which has 950 million users worldwide, and carry out basic searches to find all kinds of illegal products and services, in proportions disproportionate to what happens on other platforms. Durov half-acknowledged this, in another message published on Friday at the end of the day, assuring that his teams would pass Telegram’s moderation. “From a reason for criticism to a reason for congratulations”.
Stolen cars, counterfeit bills and real criminals.
The Telegram teams, whose numbers and locations are unknown, may have their work cut out for them. A few minutes on the app are enough to find channels selling, here, a 44 Magnum with its ammunition (3,000 euros, search in Lyon), there counterfeit banknotes (100 euros for 35 counterfeit 20 euro notes, “Everything is tested before being sold, that’s why we are the best!”). In three clicks you can access a channel with more than 7,000 subscribers, which offers stolen vehicles for sale without much discretion. A BMW i8 is on display there for 12,000 euros, less than 10% of the new price; fake number plates are offered.
Discreet delivery guaranteed
Do you need a fake registration document to accompany your stolen vehicle? There is also a Telegram channel for that: « High quality printing [haute qualité]100% identical text font to the real one, hologram »praises the administrator, supporting the photographs. He also offers fake ID cards, fake diplomas and fake residence permits for a few hundred euros. Discreet delivery guaranteed to relay points throughout France.
Of course, some of these offers are probably scams too: nothing says that orders placed on these anonymous shops, where people often pay in cryptocurrencies or via exotic payment services, will be accepted. Because Telegram is also the platform par excellence for scams, in particular for fake investments and shady cryptoassets. The vast majority of the ads present on the application also concern accounts offering dubious investments, such as this Trading crypto France group, whose ads have been very present for several months on Telegram.
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