JAKARTA, Indonesia
The encrypted messaging app Telegram is forming a team of moderators
who are familiar with Indonesian culture and language so it can remove
"terrorist-related content" faster, its co-founder said Sunday, after
Indonesia limited access to the app and threatened a total ban.
Pavel Durov, who with his brother Nikolai founded the app in 2013,
said in a message to his 40,000 followers on Telegram that he'd been
unaware of a failure to quickly respond to an Indonesian government
request to block a number of offending channels — chat groups on the
app — but was now rectifying the situation.
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology said Friday
that it was preparing for the total closure of Telegram in Indonesia,
where it has several million users, if it didn't develop procedures to
block unlawful content. As a partial measure, it asked internet
companies in the world's most populous Muslim nation to block access
to 11 addresses offering the web version of Telegram.
Samuel Pangerapan, the director general of informatics applications at
the ministry, said the app is used to recruit Indonesians into
militant groups and to spread hate and methods for carrying out
attacks including bomb making.
Suspected militants arrested by Indonesian police recently have told
authorities that they communicated with each other via Telegram and
received orders and directions to carry out attacks through the app,
including from Bahrun Naim, an Indonesian with the Islamic State group
in Syria accused of orchestrating several attacks in the past 18 months.
Durov said Telegram has now blocked the channels that were reported to
it by the Indonesian government.
"We are forming a dedicated team of moderators with knowledge of
Indonesian culture and language to be able to process reports of
terrorist-related content more quickly and accurately," he said.
Communications and Information Technology Minister Rudiantara, who
goes by one name, said he had received an apology from Durov, who was
apparently not aware of several requests from the ministry since 2016.
"I appreciate the response from Pavel Durov and the ministry will
follow it up as soon as possible in terms of technical details so that
standard operating procedures can be implemented immediately,"
Rudiantara said.
Indonesia's measures against Telegram come as Southeast Asian nations
step up efforts to combat Islamic radicalism following the capture of
the southern Philippine city of Marawi by Islamic State group-linked
militants.
Nearly two months after the initial assault, Philippine forces are
still battling to regain complete control of the city. Experts fear
the southern Philippines could become a new base for the IS, including
Indonesian and Malaysian militants returning from the Middle East, as
an international coalition retakes territory held by the IS in Syria
and Iraq.
But the government move sparked a public outcry in Indonesia, with
Twitter and Facebook exploding with negative comments and some people
reporting they were unable to access the web.telegram.org domain.
Indonesians are among the world's biggest users of social media.
The free messaging service can be used as a smartphone app and on
computers through a web interface or desktop messenger. Its strong
encryption has contributed to its popularity with those concerned
about privacy and secure communications in the digital era but also
attracted militant groups and other criminal elements.
Durov said Telegram blocks thousands of IS-related channels a month
and is "always open to ideas on how to get better at this."
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Razer