Australia takes Telegram to court over alleged failure to remove 'pro-terror' material

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Cite

Livingstone, H. (2026, July 30). Australia takes Telegram to court over alleged failure to remove 'pro-terror' material. BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crmrv4pnexmo?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss

Dated when The Aporia collected the article, usually within hours of publication. Check the original for its exact date and byline.

BBC News · collected 2026-07-30 · by Helen Livingstone

Quick Summary

Australia's eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant, is taking Telegram to court over alleged failure to remove "pro-terror" content, including footage of the Christchurch shootings, which she claims the platform left online despite being notified. The maximum fine for Telegram could be A$54.6m (£28m, US$38m). Inman-Grant alleges that Telegram had a "permissive environment" for hosting extremist content, making it easy to find and potentially desensitizing users. Telegram has rejected the allegations, stating that its anti-terrorism efforts are well-documented and will contest them in court.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-08-21, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

AI analysis runs on qwen2.5:14b, locally

Story summary

Australia's eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman-Grant, is taking Telegram to court over allegations that the platform failed to remove "pro-terror" material, including video of the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings and the Buffalo shooting in New York in May 2022. The alleged content also includes videos of terrorist executions. If found guilty, Telegram could face a fine of up to A$54.6m (£28m, US$38m) for failing to comply with its safety obligations under the Online Safety Act. Inman-Grant claimed that Telegram had left this content online despite being notified about it, and argued that "no platform is above the law". This move comes a day after Russia charged Telegram's founder Pavel Durov with facilitating terrorism, and follows earlier investigations into his alleged failure to properly moderate the app in France. The Australian court action is the latest development in a series of international efforts to regulate Telegram's content.

Written for “Australia Cracks Down on Telegram” on 2026-10-16, grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.

Story

📰 Australia Cracks Down on Telegram
Technology · 1 article(s) covering the same event.

Compared with similar articles

Nothing to compare against. No article is close enough to this one for the pipeline to have linked or judged the pair.
How this article was measured signals, leaning charts, publisher record, byline, topics and claims

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted
17
sentences that state something as happening or true
Uncertain
12%
2 of 17 hedged ("reportedly", "may", "according to")
Leaning
withheld
no quote in the article backed the model's score
Publisher signals
69/100
BBC News's corrections and hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.
Outlets on this story
1
Technology
Same framing elsewhere
1
articles that frame the event the way this one does
Analyzed 2026-07-30 · how these are computed

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability
Source leaning vs. consistency

Publisher

BBC News · 3553 article(s) · 4 correction(s) detected
Running correction rate · 4 correction(s)

Who wrote this

Helen Livingstone
4 article(s) here · 1 carrying a prediction
🔮 "He always knew there was a risk doing human rights work, but we never thought that this would happen," she told the ABC.
🔮 Wong said the government would continue pressing Israel "for justice for Zomi and her colleagues".
🔮 A Telegram spokesperson said the platform's "extensive" anti-terrorism efforts were "well documented", adding: "We reject these allegations and will contest them in court." Extremist content that was allegedly accessible on Telegram included video of the 2019 Christchurch mosque and Buffalo shooting in New York in May 2022, as well as videos of terrorist executions, according to Inman-Grant.
Also by Helen Livingstone
Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.

Topics

Australia Christchurch Russia Telegram the Online Safety Act

Subjects

Telegram ORG · 7× Australia GPE · 3× Inman-Grant ORG · 3× Christchurch GPE · 2× Durov PERSON · 1× France GPE · 1× Julie Inman-Grant PERSON · 1× Pavel Durov PERSON · 1× Russia GPE · 1× Ukrainian NORP · 1×

Narrative

Julie Inman-Grant, who last year led Australia's world-first ban on social media for under-16s, said the platform faced a fine of up to to A$54.6m (£28m, US$38m) for failing to comply with its safety obligations under the Online Safety Act.
framing: assertive · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-07-30
🔮 A Telegram spokesperson said the platform's "extensive" anti-terrorism efforts were "well documented", adding: "We reject these allegations and will contest them in court." Extremist content that was allegedly accessible on Telegram included video of the 2019 Christchurch mosque and Buffalo shooting in New York in May 2022, as well as videos of terrorist executions, according to Inman-Grant.

Claims (17 extracted, 2 hedged)

- Published Australia is taking Telegram to court over its alleged failure to remove "pro-terror" material, including video of the Christchurch shootings, the country's eSafety commissioner has said. asserted
commissioner → take → shootings
Julie Inman-Grant, who last year led Australia's world-first ban on social media for under-16s, said the platform faced a fine of up to to A$54.6m (£28m, US$38m) for failing to comply with its safety obligations under the Online Safety Act. asserted
platform → lead → Act
The platform had left content "linked to some of the most notorious acts of known extremist violence in recent history" online long after it had been put on notice, she alleged. asserted
she → leave → notice
"This should concern all of us," she said, adding "no platform is above the law". asserted
platform → concern → law
The announcement comes a day after Russia charged Telegram's founder Pavel Durov with facilitating terrorism, based on allegations that the messenger app had been used for recruitment by Ukrainian secret services. asserted
app → come → services
Durov was also arrested and placed under formal investigation in France in 2024 for his alleged failure to properly moderate the app to reduce criminality. asserted
Durov → arrest → criminality
He was allowed to go home months later, while the investigation continues. asserted
investigation → allow → ?
Inman-Grant said her agency had begun inquiring what Telegram was doing to combat terrorist and extremist material in March 2024, and had endured "five very difficult months of unresponsiveness". asserted
Telegram → say → unresponsiveness
Though the platform later started engaging, she said it had retained a "permissive environment" for hosting extremist content that was "very easy to find". asserted
that → start → content
"This only serves to desensitise, to normalise and to sometimes radicalise" users, she said. asserted
she → serve → users
She also alleged that the platform was "sometimes used to plan attacks". asserted
platform → allege → attacks
A Telegram spokesperson said the platform's "extensive" anti-terrorism efforts were "well documented", adding: "We reject these allegations and will contest them in court." Extremist content that was allegedly accessible on Telegram included video of the 2019 Christchurch mosque and Buffalo shooting in New York in May 2022, as well as videos of terrorist executions, according to Inman-Grant. uncertain
that → say → Grant
With the "painful aftermath" of the attack that targeted a Jewish festival in Bondi in December fresh in Australians' minds, it "is more important than ever that digital platforms meet their obligations to protect the community", she said. asserted
she → target → community
Inman-Grant noted that Australia does not issue licences for platforms like Telegram, but said "we could apply to the federal court and ask that the service be ceased". uncertain
service → note → court
"We've never used those powers," she said. asserted
she → use → powers
"We'll see how this all plays out and whether that kind of action is warranted." asserted
kind → see → action
The eSafety regulator also fined Telegram A$1m in February 2025 for failing to respond on time to questions about how it was tackling child abuse and extremist material on the platform. asserted
it → fin → platform
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