Vice President of European Commission sees a threat from Telegram due to lack of control

Věra Jourová, Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency, believes that Russia and other actors hostile to the EU may abuse the lack of regulation of Telegram to spread fake news in Eastern European countries. She said this in an interview with Bloomberg.

Jourová noted that Telegram is “particularly active in the eastern EU member states, where there is a Russian-speaking minority,” and is a “special case” because it claims to have only 42 million users in the EU.

“Telegram is an issue, especially active in the eastern member states where we have a Russian-speaking minority.”

Věra Jourová, Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency

This is below the threshold of 45 million euros, which, according to the EU Digital Services Act, sets additional requirements for an online platform to counteract the spread of harmful and illegal material on the web.

“We are now checking whether this number is correct, and if we find that it is more than 42 million, we will have to look deeply into how Telegram works,” the European Commission Vice President said.

The Digital Services Act, which introduces new rules on content moderation, user privacy, and transparency, came into force in the fall of 2023 and began to apply to all online platforms on February 17.

Telegram is often used by pro-Kremlin accounts to spread disinformation on issues ranging from Russia’s war in Ukraine to immigration and climate change.

In 2022, a study found that Russia is actively using Telegram as a platform to distribute manipulative videos in different languages around the world, bypassing government blocking. In addition, Russian special services use the messenger to recruit those who will carry out sabotage in European capitals, reports said.

The European Commission has designated the Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications (BIPT) as the regulator of Telegram Messenger in the EU.

Telegram is regulated by the EU Digital Services Act, which came into force in February and aims to give EU member states more control over social media and other online services.

According to these rules, social media companies must also have a presence in Europe. Dubai-based Telegram has appointed the Belgian company EDSR as its European representative. This gives the Belgian telecommunications regulator, BIPT, jurisdiction over it.

Earlier calls for Telegram regulation were made by several EU member states. Nancy Faeser, German Minister of the Interior, called for a tougher fight against harmful content distributed on Telegram channels with thousands of subscribers.

Early reports in 2022 concluded that Russia has found yet another way to spread disinformation about its invasion of Ukraine, using Telegram as a platform to distribute manipulative videos in different languages around the world, bypassing government blocking.

Nisos, an American intelligence company specialized in analyzing disinformation and other cyberthreats, stated this in a report.

The mechanism works like this: media outlets like RT upload propaganda videos to Telegram, often intentionally without a logo. Hundreds of accounts on other platforms, primarily Twitter, upload and distribute propaganda videos, which the Russian military, diplomats, or media occasionally pick up.

In total, American researchers managed to identify propaganda videos in 18 different languages, mainly English, Spanish, Italian, and German. In this case, finding the original source of the video is difficult or impossible due to Telegram’s poor moderation.

Nisos concludes that Russian propaganda is constantly adapting to external conditions; even after numerous sanctions and bans, it finds ways to spread disinformation about Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.