Telegram Cracks Down on Extremists, Removing Channels and Content

The Telegram instant messaging service shuttered almost 7,000 channels and deleted more than 15 million items of content in 2022, according to the Arab News website.

The platform carried out the move as part of a collaboration with the Riyadh-based Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology (Etidal), aiming to reduce inciting content in Arabic.

In the final months of the year alone, the two organizations identified and removed 8.5 million items of content posted by three terrorist organizations: al-Qaeda, Islamic State and Tahrir Al-Sham. This included over 4 million items from Islamic State; 3.7 million items from Tahrir Al-Sham; and 625,337 items from al-Qaeda.

Last week, the Simon Wiesenthal Center warned that Telegram had become a haven for those who had been removed from other social media platforms due to extremist content.