messenger service
Hatred and agitation increasingly extreme – BKA forms task force on Telegram
The Telegram communication platform is increasingly being used by lateral thinkers and corona deniers for radicalization and mobilization
© Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP
What to do against the increasing agitation and radicalization on the Telegram communication platform? The Federal Criminal Police Office has now set up a task force to prosecute crimes planned there. The chances of success: rather meager.
Calls to kill, hate slogans, fantasies of violence – since the outbreak of the corona pandemic, the Telegram messenger service has fallen into disrepute. Especially since it has been used by right-wing extremists and conspiracy believers to mobilize. In view of the increasing hate speech and calls for violence in chat groups, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) now wants to focus more on the communication service. “The corona pandemic in particular has contributed to people radicalizing themselves on Telegram, threatening others or even publishing calls for murder,” said BKA President Holger Münch in Wiesbaden
The BKA has now set up a so-called task force to investigate such crimes, as the authority announced. “The aim is to identify suspects and prosecute them.” This is done in close coordination with the police forces of the federal states and the central office for combating cybercrime at the Frankfurt am Main public prosecutor’s office.
In addition, in the future, in cases of politically motivated crime, a close look will be taken at how well Telegram cooperates with deletion suggestions and inventory data queries, the BKA said. “We aim to work with Telegram, but we will also take action if Telegram does not cooperate,” explained Münch.
Telegram as a “medium of radicalization”
According to the German security authorities, the messenger service is increasingly becoming a medium of radicalization. According to the BKA, political officials and elected representatives as well as scientists and physicians who are publicly involved in overcoming the corona pandemic are particularly affected. In mid-December, the police searched objects belonging to members of a chat group who had murder plans against Saxon Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) on Telegram.
However, it is questionable how such criminal prosecution can work at all, since the messenger service based in Dubai has so far consistently refused to cooperate with the authorities. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, who had threatened to shut down Telegram a few days ago, had to admit this. In an interview with “Zeit” she pleaded for a European solution: “We will need a lot of strength to enforce the law. As a German nation state we cannot do it alone.”