The messenger service has the reputation of allowing any content without moderation.
(Photo: Reuters)
Berlin The federal and state interior ministers want to regulate messenger services such as Telegram more strictly in order to curb the radicalization of opponents of the state’s corona policy. “We have to act more resolutely against agitation, violence and hatred on the Internet,” said the new Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser (SPD), to the newspapers of the Funke media group.
Thuringia’s Interior Minister Georg Maier (SPD) also sees a need for action. Demonstrations and calls for violence are being advertised on Telegram. In addition, addresses of politicians would be published there, Maier said on ZDF. “We have to take action here.” The Conference of Interior Ministers recently positioned itself in a similar manner.
Experts see Telegram as a mobilization platform for corona protests like those on the weekend in numerous German cities, when riots sometimes broke out. The Amadeu Antonio Foundation, for example, points out that the right-wing extremist group “Free Saxony” is mobilizing for anti-corona campaigns via a Telegram channel with more than 100,000 users. The chats with death threats against Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) discovered by ZDF reporters also ran via Telegram, according to the broadcaster.
The chairman of the conference of interior ministers, Thomas Strobl (CDU), expressed concern about the violent actions of individual demonstrators against police officers. “This small, radical minority is in a dangerous spiral of radicalization: The protest is getting louder, more violent, more and more brutal,” said the Baden-Württemberg interior minister to the Handelsblatt. “But whoever acts unconstitutionally, who wants to induce or even use violence, who is hating and inflammatory, will be held accountable with all means of the rule of law.”
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The messenger service Telegram has the reputation of allowing any content without moderation. In addition to individual communication, public channels are also possible. According to a study by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, Telegram has a particularly large number of right-wing extremist and right-wing populist channels. In Germany, the Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG) obliges operators of social networks with at least two million users to offer an opportunity to complain and to combat criminal content such as hate crime. From next year, providers of social networks will also have to report illegal content to the Federal Criminal Police Office. This does not currently apply to messenger services such as Telegram.
FDP and Greens for stricter requirements
The FDP does not want to accept that. “Telegram must not be a biotope for criminals who are not held accountable for their actions,” said group vice Konstantin Kuhle the Handelsblatt. “The state must not allow itself to be blackmailed by lateral thinkers and conspiracy ideologues who spread calls for violence on the platform.” These statements have nothing to do with the fundamental right to freedom of expression, but are crimes that must be prosecuted by the responsible public prosecutor.
Kuhle calls for an urgent revision of the NetzDG. “It contains a fundamental problem: In Germany, the judiciary and not private companies have to decide whether individual content is criminal,” said parliamentary group vice-president Konstantin Kuhle of the Handelsblatt. “As platform operators, they are subject to a conflict of interest because they benefit from the range and speed of the statements on their platforms themselves.”
Green parliamentary deputy Konstantin von Notz also warned “to put an end to existing enforcement deficits as quickly as possible and, if necessary, to readjust legislatively”. “Platforms like Telegram are very consciously avoiding regulation today,” he told the Handelsblatt. In view of the ongoing radicalization, the existing regulation must be adapted to actual usage habits as quickly as possible.
Von Notz also emphasized that it is not enough to focus on platforms alone. “Rather, an overall strategy against the further radicalization of parts of society is still needed,” he said. The traffic light coalition would have agreed very specific measures, including, for example, “the sustainable financing of civil society engagements through a law promoting democracy”.
In Telegram’s case, politics has not been idle. There are two administrative fine proceedings pending by the Federal Office of Justice because the company is said to have not set up the reporting channels for criminal content required in the NetzDG. The proceedings are currently at the hearing stage.
It is uncertain whether the procedure will be successful. Telegram founder Pawel Durow emphasizes again and again that his service does not delete any controversial content about Corona or pass data on to authorities.
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