Dear Telegram,
Our research has found that your platform, more than any other, is being used by terror-promoting far right networks and is home to the most extreme, genocidal and directly violent antisemitic content.
Telegram hosts users such as GhostEzra, an overtly antisemitic QAnon influencer with over 330,000 subscribers on the platform who runs what has been dubbed the “largest antisemitic internet forum” in the world.
Telegram has been used to:
The platform has facilitated and nurtured a subculture that cheerleads for and deifies terrorists, and regards mass murder not only as a means to revolution and retribution, but as a form of entertainment – all in the name of privacy.
In 2015 Pavel Durov (Telegram CEO) asserted that “the right for privacy is more important [to Telegram] than our fear of bad things happening, like terrorism.” This meant that terrorist organisations like ISIS found home in Telegram. Two months later, ISIS carried out a deadly attack in France, killing 130 people and wounding 350 more, using Telegram to coordinate and plan the attacks.
After the attack, Telegram backtracked and began removing ISIS accounts from its platform, because privacy is not boundless when lives are at risk. We are calling on Telegram to be consistent and take serious action against the terrorist content still on the platform that is putting Jewish and other minoritised communities at risk.
The new digital age has not only changed the way in which terrorism spreads and is expressed but also the tools at our disposal for combatting hate.
Yours,
HOPE not hate and our supporters (add your name here)
Signed by:
Nick Lowles, CEO, HOPE not hate
Marie van der Zyl, President, Board of Deputies of British Jews
Mark Gardner, CEO, Community Security Trust
Danny Stone MBE, CEO, Antisemitism Policy Trust
Stephanie Peacock MP (Labour) HOPE not hate Parliamentary Chair
Andrew Percy MP (Conservative) Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism
Dr Lisa Cameron MP (SNP) Vice Chair, All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism
Sir Peter Bottomley MP (Conservative) Father of the House of Commons
Debbie Abrahams MP (Labour)
Layla Moran MP (Liberal Democrat)
Caroline Lucas MP (Green)
Barbara Keeley MP (Labour)
Helen Hayes MP (Labour)
Akeela Ahmed MBE, Chair, Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group
Laura Marks OBE and Hifsa Haroon-Iqbal MBE, Co-Chairs, Nisa Nashim
Rabbi Piny Hackenbroch, Chair, Rabbinical Council, United Synagogue
Dr Matt Plen, Chief Executive, Masorti Judaism
Robert Wiltshire, Chair, Reform Judaism
Rabbi Charley Baginsky, CEO, Liberal Judaism
Nina Freedman, President, Union of Jewish Students
Rabbi David Meyer OBE, Executive Director, PaJeS (Partnerships for Jewish Schools)
Sophie Dunoff, CEO, University Jewish Chaplaincy
Shelley Marsh, Executive Director, Reshet
Michael Newman OBE, CEO, The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR)
Alex Maws, Head of Educational Grants and Projects, The Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR)
Jonathan Gibson, Executive Director, Burst the Bubble UK
