To delete hate messages
BKA wants to flood Telegram with deletion requests
Even if the Telegram platform is still not ready to talk, the BKA wants to take action against criminal and right-wing extremist content.
© Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP
Telegram continues to block any cooperation with the German authorities. That is why the Federal Criminal Police Office now wants to take an unusual approach to get the platform to delete criminal content.
In the fight against criminal and right-wing extremist content, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) wants to increase the pressure on the messenger service Telegram. According to information from “Welt” (Monday edition), representatives of the authorities in the Bundestag Interior Committee have announced that the service will be flooded with deletion requests or data requests in the future.
BKA wants to achieve cooperation with Telegram
Although Telegram has so far hardly cooperated in this area, corresponding requests should be transmitted without exception. That would make the scale clear – and possibly increase the pressure to work together.
At the request of “Welt”, the BKA declared the goal of wanting to achieve cooperation with Telegram in cooperation with the police authorities of the federal and state governments. The authority did not want to comment on specific statements in Parliament because the meeting was not public, as a spokeswoman explained.
Interior Minister Faeser threatened to shut down Telegram
Politicians and authorities are increasingly taking a confrontational course with Telegram because they believe the service is used particularly often by right-wing extremists and supporters of conspiracy theories. According to the BKA, Telegram is not interested in “collaborating with the security authorities” according to “local experience”. Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) recently threatened Telegram with being switched off in Germany because of his refusal.
Members of the government welcomed the BKA’s announcement. The deputy chairman of the Greens parliamentary group, Konstantin von Notz, told the newspaper: “Security authorities and politicians must finally present a more robust approach when it comes to dealing with companies that earn their money with personality violations, hatred and agitation and the destruction of democracy.” The ability of the rule of law to defend itself is “also measured by whether it is possible to stop the obvious violations of the law,” said von Notz.
The domestic policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Manuel Höferlin, pointed out that many of the messages at issue with the messenger service were not in shielded areas, but were freely available: “We see with Telegram that criminal content is published primarily in openly accessible groups – here the service has the character of a website,” said Höferlin of the “Welt”. “Law enforcement agencies need to keep an eye on this area and pursue them consistently.”