About nine months ago, while I was in the middle of an investigation, I was added to a Telegram channel dedicated to selling drugs. Later, I was added to one about hacking computers and another about stolen credit cards.
At that point I realized that my app settings allowed people to “add me to their channels” without me asking. I left the account settings like that to see what would happen.
Within a few months, I had been added to 82 different groups. I then changed the settings to stop him from continuing.
But every time I log into my account, I have to deal with dozens of messages from various groups that engage in illegal activities.
The arrest of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov in France has sparked a debate on the topic of moderation on the app.
Durov was charged with complicity in illegal activities, drug trafficking, fraud and dissemination of images of child sexual abuse.
There is no doubt that criminal activity is also taking place on other social networks, but my experiment highlights a larger problem that has been worrying authorities for years.
This is a little of what I found in each of the groups I was added to.
A showcase for criminals
My Telegram app has become a showcase for all sorts of illegal products on offer, all without me actively seeking out the sellers.
All images were posted in the groups and we have altered the names of the channels so as not to advertise them.
It’s no surprise that some people, like cybersecurity podcaster Patrick Gray, say that Telegram is “like having the dark web in your pocket.”
The dark web is a part of the internet that can only be accessed using special software and, of course, some knowledge.
Since the launch of the Silk Road online marketplace in 2011, there has been a steady stream of websites selling illegal goods and services.
“We’re talking about child sexual abuse, we’re talking about drug dealing, we’re talking about darknet levels of crime that nobody is doing anything about,” Gray said.
Criminals like the dark web because of the anonymity it provides: With internet traffic bouncing around the world, people’s locations can be hidden. Identifying who is behind a particular username becomes extremely difficult.
Researchers at cybersecurity firm Intel471 noted that before Telegram, “such activities were carried out on online marketplaces hosted on darknet services.”
However, the emergence of Telegram served less-skilled and lower-level criminals, “making the app one of the most popular online destinations.”
Hacking group Qilin, which hacked into the computers of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) a couple of months ago, decided to publish stolen NHS blood test data on Telegram rather than on the dark web.
An app that made its name by creating fake nudes of school girls in Spain and South Korea using artificial intelligence also operates its services, including payments, on Telegram.
Some of the Telegram channels I was added to also seemed to have a presence on another app, Snapchat. And drug suppliers are also rampant on Instagram, where there is no doubt that business is being done in private chats.
But drug dealers often advertise their Telegram accounts on those other platforms, to drive business to that app.
In January, Latvian police created a specialized unit to monitor messaging apps that discuss drug trafficking, and officials in that unit are looking at Telegram with particular concern.
Sexual abuse material
Telegram claims that moderation on its app is “within industry standards,” but this week we’ve come across evidence to the contrary, especially around a much less visible crime (and one I didn’t look up): child sexual abuse material.
On Wednesday, the BBC confirmed that while Telegram responds to some requests to take down material from authorities and non-governmental and charitable organisations, it is not participating in programmes that actively prevent the use of child sexual abuse images and videos.
One of the main accusations levelled by the French public prosecutor’s office against the company is that it is not doing enough to monitor or report this type of material.
“At the heart of this case is the platform’s lack of moderation and cooperation, particularly in the fight against crimes against children,” Jean-Michel Bernigaud, secretary general of the French child protection agency Ofmin, said on LinkedIn.
Telegram told the BBC it proactively monitors illegal activity on the platform, including child sexual abuse.
He said unspecified actions had been taken against nearly 45,000 groups in August alone.
However, his press office did not respond to our counter-questions on this and other topics in this article.
There is no cooperation with the police
Moderation is only part of the problem for Telegram. Its response to police requests to remove illegal content and transmit evidence is another focus of criticism.
As Brian Fishman, co-founder of Cinder, a security software platform, posted: “Telegram is another level: it has been a key hub for ISIS for a decade. It tolerates child sexual abuse content. It has ignored law enforcement involvement for years. This is not ‘lite’ content moderation, it is a completely different approach.”
Some might argue that Telegram’s privacy features mean the company doesn’t have much data on these activities to report to law enforcement. This is the case with ultra-private apps like Signal and WhatsApp.
Telegram offers users similar levels of privacy if they choose to create a “secret chat” that uses the same end-to-end encryption as those apps.
This means that activity within a conversation is completely private and not even Telegram can see the content.
However, this feature is not set as default in Telegram, and it seems that most of the activity on the app, even in the illicit channels I was added to, was not set to “secret.”
Telegram may be able to read all of your content and pass it on to law enforcement if it wanted to, but it states in its terms and conditions that it does not do so.
“All Telegram chats and group chats are private between their participants. We do not process any requests related to them,” the company’s terms and conditions read.
In June, Pavel Durov told journalist Tucker Carlson that he only employs “about 30 engineers” to run his platform.
Telegram’s approach to law enforcement is something that police officers have spoken to me about, with much frustration and off the record.
French authorities noted in their charges against Durov that authorities in France and Belgium have historically had an “almost total lack of response from Telegram to legal requests.”
Freedom of expression
Despite all the criticism of Telegram’s approach to moderation, some are concerned about Durov’s arrest.
Digital rights organization Access Now says it is following developments closely.
In a statement, open internet activists said Telegram was “not a model of corporate responsibility” and that the group had criticized the app many times in the past.
Access Now warns, however, that “stopping staff from platforms that people use to exercise their rights to free expression and peaceful assembly, without demonstrable alignment with human rights principles, may result in excessive censorship and could further shrink civic spaces.”
Telegram itself has repeatedly said that “it is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for what happens on that platform.”
Elon Musk, another billionaire and owner of X (formerly Twitter), has condemned the arrest, describing it as an attack on free speech, while calling for Durov’s release.
So do some of the criminals in the Telegram groups I joined, where you can see images with the phrase “Free Durov” being widely shared in English and Russian.
- Pavel Durov: Who is the billionaire founder of Telegram arrested in France for illegal content on his platform?