Telegram sees rise in reports of child abuse images
The number of reports of Telegram group chats and channels containing images of child sexual abuse and exploitation soared by 78 percent from the first to the second half of 2024, according to research carried out by SaferNet, an NGO working to promote human rights online since 2005. The data were presented on Tuesday (Feb. 11), International Safer Internet Day.
“These are systemic risks that have caused harm to children and adolescents in Brazil,” said the president of SaferNet Brasil, Thiago Tavares, in an interview with Agência Brasil. “This is evidenced by the number of groups and channels reported in the second half of last year, which increased by 19 percent compared the first half of last year,” Tavares pointed out.
In Brazil, the Statute of the Child and Adolescent (ECA) makes it a crime to sell or display photos and videos of explicit sex scenes involving children and adolescents. It is also a crime to disseminate such images by any means and even to possess files of this type. For SaferNet standards, anyone who consumes images of child sexual violence is an accomplice to child sexual abuse and exploitation.
The document released today also shows an increase in the number of Telegram users participating in groups or channels that sell and share images of child sexual abuse and pornographic material. The number rose from 1.25 million in the first half of last year to 1.4 million in the second half.
“We’re facing a large-scale problem. This is a platform that continues to operate with low to virtually no compliance with the country’s laws, and poor content moderation,” Tavares added.
Group chats and channels
SaferNet’s research also pointed to an increase in the number of Telegram group chats and channels with images of child sexual abuse and exploitation—from 874 to 1,043, up 19 percent. Of this total, 349 were still active or in operation, without any moderation by the platform.
According to SaferNet, part of the images of child sexual abuse and exploitation are sold on Telegram, with some of the sellers accepting “stars”—the virtual currency introduced by the platform in June 2024—as payment. “We found that some channels have images of child sexual abuse being freely traded as if it were a market or a free fair. These images circulate in 349 group chats on the platform,” said Tavares. “These groups were still active—that is, fully functioning and without any kind of moderation by the platform when they were accessed in the second half of the year,” he added.
Telegram, SaferNet stated, is not registered with the Central Bank of Brazil and uses 23 financial service providers to process payments, most of them located in Russia and Ukraine, or in tax havens such as Hong Kong and Cyprus. Four of these financial platforms have been subject to international sanctions: YooMoney, Sberbank, PSB, and Bank 131.
“Telegram has a cryptocurrency, and these illegal transactions are also processed via cryptocurrencies. This is another key aspect highlighted in the new report: illegal transactions continue to take place. The company uses Brazilian payment processors not registered with the Central Bank, and some are even processing payments in Brazilian real,” said Tavares.
Number one in reports
Telegram ranks first in the number of reports of child pornography received by SaferNet through www.denuncie.org.br. At the end of September, a month after the arrest of Telegram’s owner Pavel Durov, the company announced it was collaborating with requests from authorities by handing over “some user data”—phone numbers and IPs—upon legal requests.
When contacted by Agência Brasil, the platform replied it “has a zero-tolerance policy for illegal pornography,” adding it “uses a combination of human moderation, AI, and machine-learning tools, as well as complaints from users and trusted organizations to combat illegal pornography and other forms of abuse.”
Telegram also said in a statement that “all media uploaded to Telegram’s public platform has been checked against a database of hashes containing child sexual abuse material content removed by Telegram moderators since the app’s launch.”
“In February so far, over 18,907 groups and channels have been removed from Telegram for child abuse material,” the platform wrote.
In Tavares' view, however, the company’s moderation is still flawed. “There is a gap between what the company says it is doing and what we have observed, based on the complaints we receive and the evidence collected. The report they published after the first complaint doesn't show moderation by language or country. They talk about 2,500 channels blocked per day, but they don’t say where they were blocked, in which language, in which market, in which country. So it could be that they are prioritizing countries where there is regulation or a greater demand from the authorities,” Tavares explained.
Telegram is one of the five most downloaded apps in the world. In 2024, it surpassed 950 million monthly active users. The corporation is based in Dubai.
