In December, about Dozens of anti-lockdown protesters gather together on a cobbled street in the town of Grimma, eastern Germany. It was not their exhortations of “peace, freedom, no dictatorship” that put Germany’s new government in competition, but their position – outside the health minister’s own home. Saxony region, Petra Kopping. The protest was interpreted as a targeted attack on democracy and its elected officials, made more frightening by the protesters’ flaming torches, a symbol associated with democracy. with white nationalists ever since 1920s.
Later, Köpping’s team said they suspect the protest against coronavirus restrictions originated in the messaging app. Telegram—A video of the protest circulated afterward and where the minister had previously received threats. Köpping himself believes there is a direct connection between Telegram and what happened. “People are clearly using the app to meet up,” she said. Telegram did not respond to a request for comment.
German authorities believe that Telegram has become a link in a series of violent incidents related to the German anti-lockdown movement. Not long after the protest outside Köpping’s home, armed German police said they searched five properties linked to a Telegram group where members discussed plans assassination of the prime minister of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, in retaliation for the Covid restrictions. But when officials asked Telegram to address the violence on the app’s public channels, they fell silent. Correspondence, proposals for fines, a dedicated Telegram task force, and even threats to ban the entire platform have gone unanswered. Germany’s struggle to enforce its authority over Telegram is a warning to other governments now drafting their own online safety laws: Even as lawmakers enact new rules , there is no guarantee that any platform will follow them.
Telegram is one of the most popular German online messengers. About 7.8 million people in the country used the app in 2019, according to Statista. A more recent January survey by the official Federal Network Agency shows that 16% of regular users of the online messaging service use Telegram – up 6% from 2019 (though still much lower than the most popular service, WhatsApp , accounting for 93%). Researchers been complaining about extremists on Telegram for years. Jakob Guhl, a research manager at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a nonprofit that analyzes online extremism, said that during the pandemic, the number of far-right followers has exploded. explosion in Germany. He said before the pandemic, the largest far-right numbers had around 40,000 followers. Now that number is over 200,000.
“The German anti-lockdown movement strikes me as being relatively large, quite energetic and quite radical compared to other countries,” says Guhl. He argues that it connects groups that may not be right for each other. “It includes some people who are part of pre-existing far-right movements, but more interestingly, it brings together quite a few anti-vaxx people who are interested in alternative lifestyles, alternative medicine. , conspiracy theorists, followers of QAnon.” On Telegram, that led to far-right content mixing with coronavirus conspiracies, such as claims that the virus is an excuse to install a dictatorial state and calls for violence against politicians. family. “I’m really surprised how radicalized people who weren’t previously involved in ideological movements and calls for violence,” Guhl said.
Telegram’s silence on the issue of violent anti-lockdown content is infuriating a country that believes free speech has limits and legislates accordingly. In 2018, Germany started enforcing the Network Enforcement Act, or Netz DG, which aims to make illegal offline speech and symbols — such as swastikas, Holocaust denials, or incitements violence against minorities — illegal online. Most social media platforms are compliant and even hire more German moderators to block content deemed illegal locally. There was initially confusion about whether the law would apply to Telegram as other messaging apps, like WhatsApp, have been exempted because they are considered “personal communication services”. In 2021, the Department of Justice publicly clarified that Telegram is required to follow the rules and said German media it brought two good proceedings against the application for non-compliance. While the app can be used to communicate with each other, the ministry said it also gives people the ability to set up established groups. 200,000 members or create a channel to broadcast to an unlimited audience.
