MELBOURNE: Australia’s legal action against Telegram is more than another regulatory dispute involving a global technology platform. It is becoming a test of a much bigger question confronting governments worldwide: how far can platforms invoke privacy and free speech when their networks are used to preserve and distribute terrorist and extremist propaganda?
Australia’s online safety watchdog, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, has filed civil proceedings in the Federal Court against Telegram, alleging that the messaging platform failed to detect and remove terrorist and violent extremist material, including footage linked to the Christchurch and Buffalo mass shootings and Islamic State beheading videos.
If the allegations are proven, Telegram could face a penalty of up to A$54.6 million (about US$38 million) under Australia’s online safety framework. The case is also a significant test of Australia’s 2021 Online Safety Act and its requirement that technology platforms take steps to keep illegal and pro-terrorism material off their services.
Telegram has rejected the allegations and said it will contest the case in court. The company points to its anti-terrorism efforts and says more than 150,000 terrorist-related communities have been blocked from the platform this year. It also argues that Telegram remains committed to user privacy and fundamental rights including freedom of speech and assembly.
That clash captures the central dilemma of the digital age.
Telegram is not simply another social-media feed. Its architecture allows group chats of up to 200 users and channels with potentially unlimited reach. For regulators, that scale matters. A platform designed to distribute information rapidly can also become an efficient vehicle for extremist propaganda, particularly when violent material remains accessible after the platform has been warned.
Inman Grant said the Australian regulator alleges that material associated with some of the most notorious extremist attacks in recent history remained available on Telegram long after the company had been put on notice.
“When platforms are alerted to terrorist content, they must act,” she said.
The argument is increasingly difficult to separate from the wider evolution of extremist violence itself. The Christchurch and Buffalo attacks demonstrated how terrorist and white-supremacist violence can be transformed into digital propaganda. The 2019 Christchurch mosque attacker livestreamed his massacre in New Zealand, where 51 Muslim worshippers were killed. In Buffalo in 2022, a white supremacist livestreamed part of his supermarket attack on Twitch, killing 10 Black people.
The digital afterlife of such attacks can extend far beyond the original crime. Videos, manifestos and ideological material can be copied, repackaged and redistributed by online communities that glorify perpetrators and attempt to turn violence into a recruitment narrative. That is why Australia’s case against Telegram has implications far beyond one company.
The regulator says eSafety began pressing Telegram to comply with its policies in March 2024 and that the company was initially “non-responsive” for months. Telegram later became more cooperative after French authorities arrested its Russian-born founder and CEO, Pavel Durov, in August 2024 over allegations that the platform was being used for illegal activities, including drug trafficking and the distribution of child sexual abuse material. Durov was released after four days of questioning on €5 million bail.
Inman Grant said Telegram’s compliance improved initially following action by French authorities but argued that the platform has continued to maintain what she described as a permissive environment for terrorist material.
The confrontation comes after a longer regulatory history in Australia. In February 2025, eSafety issued Telegram an infringement notice of A$957,780 after the company failed to respond on time to a legally enforceable transparency notice concerning its measures to address terrorist and violent extremist material and child sexual exploitation material. eSafety said Telegram eventually provided the required information more than five months after the deadline.
Australia’s approach reflects a broader shift in how governments view platform responsibility. The regulatory question is no longer simply whether technology companies host illegal material. It increasingly asks whether they have adequate systems to detect, respond to and remove harmful content once they know it exists.
For Telegram, however, the issue cuts directly into the identity it has built around privacy, freedom of expression and resistance to government pressure.
The company says it has played a prominent role in pro-democracy movements in countries including Iran, Russia, Belarus, Myanmar and Hong Kong. That history matters. Messaging platforms can provide essential communication channels when governments restrict conventional media or attempt to suppress political dissent.
The danger is that the same infrastructure can be exploited by extremists.
That creates a difficult policy balance. Governments cannot treat every encrypted or private communication channel as inherently dangerous, just as technology companies cannot reasonably argue that freedom of expression removes all responsibility for clearly illegal terrorist propaganda.
Australia’s case therefore raises a more consequential standard: privacy should protect legitimate communication, but it cannot automatically become immunity from accountability.
The international dimension is becoming even more complicated. Just as Australia is pursuing Telegram over alleged failures to remove extremist material, Russia’s Federal Security Service has accused Durov of aiding what it describes as terrorist activities and has said his name was being added to international wanted lists. Those accusations form part of a separate Russian crackdown on Telegram and online communications, and Telegram has long portrayed government pressure against the platform as a threat to privacy and free expression.
The contrast illustrates why platform regulation cannot be reduced to a simple battle between governments and technology companies. The real challenge is establishing rules that are transparent, proportionate and enforceable across jurisdictions.
Australia is effectively arguing that global platforms cannot operate in its market while treating local online-safety obligations as optional. Telegram, meanwhile, is defending a model built around privacy, broad communication and resistance to state interference.
The Federal Court will ultimately determine the legal merits of the Australian allegations. But the political and technological debate will continue well beyond the courtroom.
The next phase of internet governance is likely to be defined by one fundamental principle: digital platforms are no longer merely infrastructure; they are powerful actors in the information environment, with consequences for public safety, democracy and national security. The Telegram case could become an important marker in determining where the line between platform freedom and platform responsibility is drawn.
-Rod McLay
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