Telegram is used by around 950 million people worldwide and has previously positioned itself as an app focused on the privacy of its users rather than the policy norms set by other global social media companies.
But reports from the BBC and other news organizations highlighted criminals using the app advertise drugs and offer anti-cybercrime and anti-fraud services, very recently CSAM
This led one expert to call it “the dark web in your pocket.”
In August, its billionaire owner was detained at an airport north of Paris.
Durov is accused of refusing to cooperate with law enforcement agencies in the case of drug trafficking, child sexual content and fraud.
French judges banned the 40-year-old man from leaving France pending further investigation.
The company claims that his arrest is unjustand that it should not be responsible for what users do on the platform.
However, Telegram has since announced a number of changes to how it works, including:
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Announcing the IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate its rules will be given to the police in response to lawful requests.
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Disabling features like ‘people nearby’ which were admittedly problematic with bots and cheats
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Publishing regular transparency reports on the number of content removed is a standard industry practice that was previously refused
Mr. Durau also promised to “transform moderation in Telegram from an area of criticism to an area of praise.”
The partnership with the IWF appears to be the latest step in this process.
The IWF is one of the few organizations in the world that has the right to legally search for and remove child sexual content.
Its ever-evolving list of known abusive content is used by websites to detect and block matches to stop it from spreading.
Telegram says that before becoming a member of the IWF, it removed hundreds of thousands of offensive content every month using its own systems. Membership in the IWF will strengthen its mechanisms, the company said.
The app is marketed as a messaging service with full end-to-end encryption – meaning only the sender and receiver of the message can read it – like WhatsApp and Signal.
But in reality, most communications are done with standard encryption, which raises questions about how secure it is from hacking and interception.
Mr. Durov, who was born in Russia and now lives in Dubai, holds citizenship of Russia, France, the United Arab Emirates and the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis.
Telegram is especially popular in Russia, Ukraine and countries of the former Soviet Union, as well as in Iran.
