About nine months ago, while researching a story, I was added to a large Telegram channel focused on drug sales.
Then I was added to a hacking post and a stolen credit card post.
I realized that my Telegram settings had made it possible for people to add me to their channels without me having to do anything. I kept the settings the same to see what would happen.
Within a few months I was added to 82 different groups.
I changed my settings to stop this, but now every time I log in I get thousands of new messages from dozens of extremely active illegal groups.
The arrest of billionaire Telegram CEO in France has sparked a debate over moderation on its app.
Pavel Durov has been charged with alleged complicity in facilitating illegal transactions, drug trafficking, fraud and the distribution of child sexual abuse images on his site.
There’s no doubt that crime occurs on other social networks as well, but my experiment points to a broader problem that many in law enforcement have been concerned about for years.
Below you will find an overview of some of the groups I have joined.
My Telegram app has become a one-stop shop for illegal goods, without me having to actively seek out new sellers.
All the images have been placed in the groups and we have changed the channel names so that we don’t have to advertise them.
It’s no wonder that some people, like cybersecurity podcaster Patrick Gray, have been describing Telegram for months as “the dark web in your pocket.”
The dark web is a part of the internet that can only be accessed using specialized software and knowledge. Since the launch of the Silk Road marketplace in 2011, there has been a constant flow of websites selling illegal goods and services.
Speaking about Mr Durov’s shocking arrest, Mr Gray said on his Risky Business podcast that Telegram has long been a haven for criminals.
“We’re talking about child pornography, we’re talking about drug trafficking, we’re talking about the level of crime on the dark web that they’re not doing anything about,” he said.
Criminals love the dark web for the anonymity it offers – internet traffic is routed around the world, hiding people’s locations. It is extremely difficult to track who is behind certain usernames.
Researchers at cybersecurity firm Intel471 says that “Before Telegram, this activity was mainly carried out on online marketplaces hosted using hidden dark web services,” but for lower-level and less skilled cybercriminals “Telegram has become one of the most popular online destinations.”
The hacking group Qilin, which earlier this summer took NHS hospitals hostage, remarkably chose to publish stolen blood test data on his Telegram channel for his dark web website. The deepfake service that was used to create fake nude photos of school girls in Spain and South Korea also offers its full service, including payments, through Telegram.
There is no doubt that some of this crime is taking place on other platforms as previously reported.
For example, some of the criminal Telegram channels I’ve been added to also appear to be on Snapchat. Drug dealers are also on Instagram, where deals are undoubtedly made in private chats.
But drug dealers often advertise their Telegram channels on those other sites to attract people to that platform.
In January, the state police in Latvia set up a separate unit specialized in monitoring drug trafficking chat apps and communications. Officials have flagged Telegram as a particular concern.
Material containing child abuse
Telegram says its moderation is “within industry standards,” but this week we’ve seen evidence to the contrary, related to an area of crime that’s much less visible (and one I didn’t look for): child abuse material.
On Wednesday, the BBC learned that while Telegram is responding to requests from police and charities to remove the messages, it doesn’t work in programs aimed at proactively preventing the distribution of images and videos of child sexual abuse.
The app is not a member of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children or the Internet Watch Foundation. Both organizations work with all major social networks to find, report and remove such material.
One of the main accusations from French prosecutors is that not enough is being done to combat child pornography (CSAM).
“At the heart of this case is the platform’s lack of moderation and cooperation, particularly in the fight against crimes against children,” said Jean-Michel Bernigaud, secretary general of France’s child protection agency Ofmin, on LinkedIn.
Telegram told the BBC it was proactively looking for illegal activity, including child sexual abuse, on its site, saying it had taken covert action against 45,000 groups in August alone.
The press service did not respond to follow-up questions about this topic or anything else in this article.
In June, Pavel Durov told journalist Tucker Carlson that he only employs “about 30 engineers” to run his platform.
Not cooperating with the police
Moderation is only part of the problem for Telegram. The handling of police requests to remove illegal content and turn over evidence is another criticism.
As Brian Fishman, co-founder of Cinder, a trust and safety software platform, posted: “Telegram is on another level: it’s been the primary hub for ISIS for a decade. It tolerates CSAM. It’s ignored reasonable law enforcement involvement for years. It’s not ‘light’ content moderation; it’s a completely different approach.”
Some argue that Telegram’s privacy features mean the company doesn’t have much data on this activity 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” which uses the same end-to-end encryption as those apps. It means that the activity within a conversation is completely private, and not even Telegram itself can view the content.
However, this feature is not enabled by default on Telegram, and it appears that most activity on the app – including the illegal channels I was added to – is not set as ‘secret’.
Telegram is allowed to read all content and pass it on to the police if it wants to, but the company states in its terms and conditions that this is not the case.
“All Telegram chats and group chats are private between their participants. We do not process any requests related to this,” the company’s terms and conditions state.
Telegram’s cold approach to law enforcement is something I’ve heard about from frustrated police officers at press conferences.
The French authorities noted in their statements on Mr Durov’s allegations that police there and in Belgium had in the past “been almost totally unresponsive to legal requests from Telegram”.
Authorities in other countries, including Germany, have spoken out loud and clear about a lack of cooperation from the app about removing illegal content.
Freedom of expression
Despite all the criticism of Telegram’s moderation approach, there are those who worry that Mr Durov’s arrest is a worrying event.
Digital rights organization Access Now says it is following the developments with great concern.
In a statement, The open internet campaigners said Telegram “is not a model of good corporate citizenship” and that the group had criticised the app many times in the past.
However, Access Now warns that “detaining staff of platforms that people use to exercise their rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, without demonstrable compliance with human rights principles, could amount to over-censorship and further shrink public space”.
Telegram itself has repeatedly said that “it is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for the abuse of that platform”.
Elon Musk, fellow billionaire and owner of X (formerly Twitter), has condemned the arrest, describing it as an attack on freedom of speech and calling for Mr Durov’s release.
This also applies to some of the criminals in the Telegram groups I am now a member of. FreeDurov images are widely shared in English and Russian.
