While Telegram channels tend to reach relatively few people compared to larger social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook pages, experts say they are equally if not more dangerous as hubs for extremists. {snip}
Telegram states on its web site that it will not engage in “politically motivated censorship.” It says that while it does remove terrorist content, “we will not block anybody who peacefully expresses alternative opinions.” But analysts argue much of the white supremacist content on Telegram meets the definition of terrorism. {snip}
High anxieties surrounding traumatic global events often correlate with the rise of new conspiracy theories. But a new factor driving the increase in coronavirus-related extremism, experts say, is that so many people are now spending time online while confined to their homes. {snip}
{snip}
One strand of white supremacist thought, visible in Telegram channels, that has seen a rapid uptick as coronavirus spreads is “accelerationism,” a fringe philosophy that calls for adherents to do all they can to hasten societal collapse and bring a white supremacist government to power in the U.S. “This is a group of the most extreme extremists who are actively welcoming chaos and violence,” says the SPLC’s Cassie Miller. “They have welcomed coronavirus, because it means that we might get pushed closer to civilizational collapse, which is their goal because only after that happens can they build their white ethnostate.”
Telegram is the main place on the Internet where accelerationists congregate, Miller says. “It is the friendliest platform to their thinking,” she says. “They haven’t seemed to make any moves to remove this content.”
Telegram is not just used by extremists: it is also popular among activists and journalists because of its privacy credentials. But it has become a hub for white supremacists at the same time that mainstream social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have tried to crack down on hate speech and violent extremism. {snip}
{snip}