Telegram has taken over large social sites like Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp as a key medium for communication for global terrorists. The ISIS is the prime example who have switched from large social sites to spread their propaganda to smaller and more closed ones, in particular Telegram. This was announced in the annual report for 2017-2018, the Security Service of Belgium, which combines the functions of intelligence and counterintelligence.
“In 2014-2016, during the proclamation of the so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria, the organization actively distributed its propaganda materials. The text and video information of the ISIS, which was produced with a certain professionalism, was widely distributed by supporters of the organization.
Telegram in Kashmir, India
As EurAsian Times reported earlier, India’s leading institutions like Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Milia Islamia become a hotbed for terror groups to entice young, vulnerable Kashmiri students? According to secondary research by EurAsian Times, social media applications like Telegram and Signal have become key recruiting tools for terror organizations to woo Kashmiri students from these premier institutions.
Are Terror Groups Targeting Jamia, Aligarh Muslim University For Recruitment of Kashmiri Students?
YouTube responded to the appearance of such messages and began to actively delete them. This led to a partial transfer of ISIS propaganda into more closed applications, in particular Telegram, ”the report says.
In the summer of 2017, the Russian FSB requested encryption keys from Telegram Messenger LLP (United Kingdom) to access user correspondence. It later emerged that the request concerned an act of terrorism in the St. Petersburg metro on April 3, 2017, when 15 people were killed and 103 were injured.
Telegram was obliged to provide encryption keys in accordance with the federal law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection” dated July 27, 2006. However, Telegram did not provide the keys at the request of the special services; in December 2017, the messenger lawyers appealed to the Supreme Court of Russia with a claim to invalidate the order of the FSB dated July 16, 2016.
