Australia's 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. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.
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 "alleged failure to detect and remove pro-terror material," eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said Thursday.
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.
Telegram denied the claims. "We reject these allegations and will contest them in court," a spokesperson said in a written statement sent on Telegram.
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.
"This 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," Inman Grant said in a statement.
"We allege that this content remained accessible on the service long after Telegram had been put on notice," she said.
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.
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