Palestinians inspect the rubble of destroyed buildings following Israeli airstrikes on the town of ... [+]
Telegram, a social media platform that has gained considerable attention in the U.S. since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, has started restricting access to channels operated by Hamas and supporters of Hamas, according to a new report from CNN. Several channels that used to post content from inside Gaza are now inaccessible.
I was able to confirm a channel called hamas_com was now inaccessible for iPhone users based on my own attempt to access the channel, though it does appear some Android users may still have access to various Hamas-linked channels, according to CNN. Other channels with pro-Palestinian content didn’t seem to be affected, and it’s not clear how many channels have been restricted.
Telegram is a platform based in Dubai with a development team from Russia, where it was originally founded, and has become popular in recent years with extremist groups, including far-right figures in the U.S. like Nick Fuentes and Laura Loomer. So-called “active clubs,” which are essentially neo-Nazi fight clubs, also have an enormous presence on Telegram, though there’s plenty of benign social media activity on the platform as well.
It should be noted that pro-Israel accounts also have a presence on Telegram, including the Israel Defense Forces and South First Responders, which has posted some of the horrific videos that emerged after the terror attacks on October 7 by Hamas militants who struck Israel, killing 1,400 people.
Social media platforms have become a battleground for warring factions during this conflict, with both official channels and unofficial observers posting their opinions on sites like Facebook, Telegram and X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. But those same platforms have struggled with a flood of misinformation and disinformation. X has been particularly bad during this war, since owner Elon Musk spent the past year setting up financial incentives that help bad information spread.
Musk’s changes have boosted accounts that pay $8 per month for “verification” despite the fact that X doesn’t verify the identity of anyone on the site anymore. And the billionaire’s decision to pay creators for engagement has caused a flood of extremely distressing videos to be published on the site. Personally, I can attest to the fact that I’ve seen a large number of videos showing people being stabbed and shot in my “For You” page of people I don’t follow, an apparent move by those accounts to farm engagement.
As CNN notes, extremist content often jumps from social media platform to social media platform, but this new war has seen Telegram become a central hub of horrific photos and videos from inside Gaza and Israel. That content then gets republished to places like X, where it often finds a larger audience in the U.S. since Telegram is still a niche product in America.
Telegram hasn’t responded to questions sent Thursday evening. I’ll update this post if I hear back.
