On November 23rd last year, hours after the tragic stabbing incident in Dublin city centre, users in a private group chat on the Telegram messaging platform discussed plans for that evening.
One voice note included the message, “Seven o’clock, be in town. Everyone bally up [wear balaclavas], tool up. And any f***ing g**o, foreigner, anyone, just kill them.” Telegram was a focal point for the incitement of hatred and instigation of violence that followed that night.
The same day, iStories, an independent Russian journalism website, published an investigation detailing how the leader of a political party in the country, Sergey Mironov, had secretly adopted and renamed a 10-month-old Ukrainian girl taken from the Kherson region while it was under Russian occupation.
The story, unsurprisingly not a subject of interest for state-run media, was shared by the newspaper on Telegram, one of the few remaining online platforms where Russians can access independent news coverage about their country.
And therein lies the paradox of Telegram. Since its launch in 2013, it has risen to prominence as one of the most influential but controversial messaging platforms in the world. With its promotion of privacy, encrypted messaging and minimal oversight, it has garnered a user base of almost one billion users – more than Elon Musk’s X/Twitter – including many living in countries under repressive regimes where censorship and surveillance are the norm.
Telegram was founded by Pavel Durov, a deeply private........