The platform came under the spotlight after its leader Pavel Durov was arrested in France on Saturday. He has already been released on bail but cannot leave the country.
Mr. Durov has been accused of failing to curb extremist and illegal content on the increasingly controversial platform, which has more than 900 million users. followers.
Telegram was already in the European Union’s sights before the French criminal investigation. Senior EU officials described Telegram as a “problem”.
But now, independent of the French investigation, the European Commission is looking into whether Telegram has reached a minimum number of users that would require it to be subject to stricter rules.
ES focuses on the “social network” part of the platform, which has channels with hundreds of thousands of subscribers, rather than one-on-one messaging between contacts like WhatsApp or Signal.
A new law called the Digital Services Act (DSA), which entered into force in February, obliges all platforms operating in the EU to protect internet users from illegal and harmful content.
However, for platforms with an EU of at least 45 million of active users per month, even higher obligations apply and are not regulated by national authorities but by the Commission.
Responsibilities include identifying risks posed by platforms and implementing measures to mitigate them, as well as ensuring third-party audits.
The EU classifies 25 platforms as “very large”, including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X and YouTube.
Telegram avoided additional regulations because it said in February it had 41 million users. users in 27 EU countries. The commission admitted it had “doubts” about such claims by Telegram.
2024-08-30 10:15:30