According to a report by CNBC, the platform has stopped Androidusers from accessing both Hamas’s official channels — hamas_com, and the channel of the al-Qassam Brigades (which is the military wing of Hamas).The report didn’t confirm if the messaging platform has done the same foriPhone users as well.
The report claims that Telegram users on Android who have tried accessing the channels are seeing a message. It reads: “Unfortunately, this channel can’t be displayed on Telegram apps downloaded from the Google Play Store.”
However, some other channels that are associated with Hamas, such as “Gaza Now,” are still accessible on Telegram. “Gaza Now” boasts more than 1.6 million subscribers. This development was reported earlier by the Russian state-owned media agency Tass.
Here’s what the Telegram CEO has to say about this change
Palestine-based group Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel earlier this month. This move has escalated violence in the region. Social media platforms have come under immense pressure to curb the spread of misinformation and propaganda in the middle of the war.
As per the report, previously, Telegram’s CEO, Pavel Durov has resisted calls to remove Hamas’ presence on the app. The company stated that the group has been an important source of information about the war.
In a recent post, Durov also confirmed that the platform’s moderators and AI tools have removed millions of posts related to the war that are “obviously harmful” every day. He also noted that “tackling war-related coverage is seldom obvious” and Hamas “used Telegram to warn civilians in Ashkelon to leave the area ahead of their missile strikes.”
He said: “Would shutting down their channel help save lives — or would it endanger more lives? While it would be easy for us to destroy this source of information, doing so risks exacerbating an already dire situation.”