Messaging platform Telegram has announced it blocked 15.4 million groups and channels in 2024 as part of its intensified efforts to combat harmful content, including fraud, terrorism, and Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). The company revealed these details through a newly launched moderation page aimed at increasing transparency around its content moderation practices.

This crackdown comes amid heightened scrutiny of the platform following the arrest of Telegram’s founder, Pavel Durov, in France. Durov was detained on August 24, 2024, upon arriving for a dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron.

He was charged with failing to adequately moderate extremist and illegal content, which authorities claim has turned Telegram into a hub for terrorists and drug traffickers. The case is still ongoing, but Durov has been granted conditional release on €5 million bail and must remain in France, reporting to the police twice weekly.

Telegram credits its recent progress to the deployment of advanced AI moderation tools, which have enabled the removal of millions of pieces of harmful content. The platform revealed that it now blocks tens of thousands of groups and channels daily for violating its Terms of Service, particularly materials that promote violence, terrorism, or illegal trade.

The company highlighted its zero-tolerance stance on CSAM, disclosing that 705,688 groups and channels related to such content were blocked in 2024 alone.

“Since 2018, public images have been automatically checked against a hash database of CSAM banned by our moderators over the past decade. In 2024, we expanded this database with hashes from organizations like the Internet Watch Foundation,” Telegram said.

Daily transparency reports on CSAM removal have now been added as a core aspect of Telegram’s fight against such content.

In its battle against terrorism, Telegram reported the blocking of 129,986 terrorist-related communities in 2024. The platform emphasized its collaboration with organizations such as ETIDAL, the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology.

“Through its collaboration with ETIDAL alone, Telegram’s moderators have removed over 100 million pieces of terrorist content,” the company stated.

Following his release, Pavel Durov addressed the platform’s content moderation challenges, acknowledging Telegram’s efforts to comply with regulations, including having a European Union compliance officer overseeing its adherence to EU laws. However, he criticized attempts to hold tech founders responsible for user actions as a “misguided” approach.

Telegram’s crackdown reflects the company’s ongoing struggle to balance user freedom with regulatory demands as it serves a growing user base of over 900 million globally. Despite its recent efforts, the platform remains at the center of controversy surrounding its role in managing harmful and illegal content.

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Telegram recently announced its plans to roll out an advertising platform in March 2024, offering channel owners the opportunity to gain financial rewards.

The CEO and founder, Pavel Durov, said in a statement via his Telegram channel that the rewards will be distributed in toncoin on the TON blockchain.

The social media platform currently has more than 800 million monthly active users around the world.

The CEO revealed that under this system, channel owners will receive 50 per cent of the revenue generated from ads displayed in their channels.

He said that despite the one trillion monthly views on broadcast channels, only 10 per cent of these views are currently monetized through Telegram Ads, the platform’s promotional tool.

The statement reads, “Next month, channel owners on Telegram can start receiving financial rewards from their work.

“Broadcast channels on Telegram generate 1 trillion views monthly. Currently, only 10 per cent of these views are monetized with Telegram Ads, a promotion tool designed with privacy in mind.

“In March, the Telegram Ad Platform will officially open to all advertisers in nearly a hundred new countries. Channel owners in these countries will start receiving 50 per cent of any revenue that Telegram makes from displaying ads in their channels.

“To ensure ad payments and withdrawals are fast and secure, we will exclusively use the TON blockchain. Similar to our approach with Telegram usernames on Fragment, we will sell ads and share revenue with channel owners in Toncoin.

“This will create a virtuous circle, in which content creators will be able to either cash out their Toncoins, or reinvest them in promoting and upgrading their channels.”

Telegram’s announcement places it in the company of major platforms like Meta, YouTube, TikTok, and X (previously Twitter), all of which provide users with ad revenue-sharing opportunities.

In July 2022, Meta, formerly Facebook, introduced Music Revenue Sharing, enabling creators to monetize videos featuring licenced music.

Creators can earn a 20 per cent revenue share on eligible videos, with the remaining portion going to music rights holders and Meta.

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