The Telegram messenger will protect its users from mass mailings with calls to terrorist attacks and threats — both from strangers and from quite familiar people. The update was announced by Telegram founder Pavel Durov.
He noted that four days ago, Russian-speaking users of the messenger were massively attacked by messages from strangers with calls to terrorist attacks. Chronologically, this happened after the terrorist attack in Krasnogorsk.
Within an hour of receiving such complaints, we applied a number of technical and organizational measures to prevent this activity. As a result, tens of thousands of attempts to send such messages were suppressed, and thousands of users participating in this flash mob faced a permanent ban on their Telegram accounts. From the beginning of next week, all users from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus will be able to limit the circle of those who can send them personal messages. We are also implementing AI-based solutions to process complaints even more efficiently. Telegram is not a place for spam mailings and calls to violence.
Durov's statement was made against the background of an appeal to him from Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the President of Russia, to pay attention to the use of Telegram by terrorists for their own purposes. After the terrorist attack in the Krasnogorsk Crocus, Roskomnadzor blocked more than ten Telegram channels of a terrorist nature.
On the eve of the meeting, State Duma deputy from United Russia Oleg Morozov announced the possibility of using AI in Telegram to search for and filter channels for recruiting terrorists. According to Kommersant, he proposed using AI to search for such channels using keywords.
At the same meeting, it became known that the Prosecutor General's Office, the Ministry of Digital Development and Roskomnadzor are working on a new system for blocking content on the Web. Also, Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Anna Kuznetsova noted that an appeal has already been sent to the Russian government with a proposal to create mechanisms for blocking destructive content in messengers.
According to her, in 19 regions of Russia, there were already active attempts to recruit minors to commit terrorist attacks through messengers. Also, through messengers, children and adolescents are now receiving letters and messages with threats to themselves and their loved ones.
In particular, threats came to the smartphones of participants in the World Youth Festival. And after the terrorist attack in Krasnogorsk, the victims of which, according to the latest data, have already reached 144 people, children and adolescents began to receive "calls and messages urging them to support and imitate terrorists".
Thus, the Telegram update will help protect its underage users from calls to terrorist attacks and threats before mechanisms for blocking such content in messengers are implemented globally.
