Telegram shuts down hundreds of public calls for violence in the United States

Telegram founder Pavel Durov shared a Telegram post on Monday and announced that his instant messaging service has blocked and taken down hundreds of public calls for violence amids the political tensions in the U.S.

After WhatsApp announced its new controversial privacy policy which will mandate data-sharing with Facebook as well as other Facebook companies and of which the enforcement was later postponed to May 15th, a growing number of mobile users started looking for WhatsApp-alternative apps such as Signal and Telegram due to privacy concerns. 

In the midst of every crisis, lies great opportunity. The downloads of Signal have skyrocketed after WhatsApp’s new privacy policy and Elon Musk’s tweet and Telegram recently reached 500 million active users and 25 million users joined the app in just 72 hours. 

Also Read: Telegram Usage Statistics & Telegram Vs. WhatsApp

However, the recent political tensions in the United States and other countries have once again proved how crucial it is for social media and chat services to moderate content that incite violence. 

One of these services that couldn’t manage to do this is Parler which was recently banned by Apple, Google and Amazon after the accusations that it was used before and during the Capitol riot and the platform failed to remove malicious content. Apple CEO Tim Cook said the app may return to the App Store if it if gets its content moderation together

Another service that has been harshly criticized for its content moderation is Telegram. So much so that Ambassador Marc Ginsberg and the Coalition for a Safer Web sued Apple for keeping Telegram on the App Store although Apple has taken action against Parler. 

Just a day after the lawsuit was filed against Apple, Telegram CEO Pavel Durov shared a public post and said his platform last week removed hundreds of public calls for violence. ‘’Telegram welcomes peaceful debate and protest, but our Terms of Service explicitly prohibit distributing public calls to violence.‘’ he said.

Here’s the Telegram post: