Telegram, Pro-Democracy Tool, Struggles Over New Fans From Far | TRAMP @tramp

Telegram, Pro-Democracy Tool, Struggles Over New Fans From Far Right
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/world/europe/telegram-app-far-right.html

The messaging app Telegram has long been an engine of resistance and an annoyance for tyrants. Authoritarian leaders in Russia and Iran have tried to ban it. When protests broke out recently in Belarus and Hong Kong, Telegram was the glue that held democracy movements together in the face of violent onslaughts by powerful security services.

These days, though, Telegram is quickly becoming an online refuge for a different kind of resistance.

Far-right conspiracy theorists, racists and violent insurrectionists have been flocking to Telegram in recent weeks after being banished from the big American social media platforms following the storming of the Capitol building in Washington by a mob supporting President Donald J. Trump, who himself was cut off from Facebook and Twitter.

Twenty-five million new users flooded Telegram in the days after Twitter and Facebook, reacting to the Jan. 6 mayhem at the Capitol, purged users they deemed responsible for having incited violence or spread disinformation. The company’s founder, Pavel Durov, described it as “the largest digital migration in human history.”

The cascade of new users presents a new complication for Mr. Durov, who has positioned himself as an unambiguous ally of the street and free speech. He has promoted Telegram, which combines the features of Facebook and Twitter with encrypted messaging and a hands-off moderating philosophy, as a refuge for the oppressed.

The app has helped fuel democracy movements in Iran and Belarus but now faces scrutiny as extremists and conspiracy theorists flock to it amid crackdowns by Facebook and Twitter on disinformation.

Shortly after Twitter blocked Mr. Trump’s account, Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, urged the president to move over to Telegram as well.

“Seems like you don’t enjoy freedom of speech in your own country any more!” Mr. Polyanskiy wrote.

So far, Mr. Trump has refrained, though a fake account created in his name already has nearly 800,000 subscribers.

On Friday his son, Donald Trump Jr., announced that he had joined Telegram and urged supporters to follow his channel.