Telegram and the Zachary Legal Institute: Breaking Telegram to Save Lives or Endange a Nation’s War, or How to Discard App Store Rules

Less than 24 hours later, Telegram banned four of the seven channels highlighted by the Zachor Legal Institute, including a channel dedicated to Hamas and one with more than half a million followers.

Some of the channels amassed hundreds of thousands of subscribers and sent out graphic images and videos of the war, in addition to calls to action from Hamas members.

“These channels are used as psychological terror tools to influence Western public,” said Ron Machol, the Chief Operating Officer of the Zachary Legal Institute.

Durov said in a Telegram message earlier this month that Hamas uses his platform to warn Palestinians about missile strikes.

Is shutting down their channel going to save lives or endanger lives? It would be easy for us to destroy this source of information, but doing it would only make the situation worse.

Being in violation of Apple and Google’s app store rules could result in an app being removed from the mobile app stores both companies control. Both Apple and Google have rules against apps that promote violence.

Being kicked out Apple and Google’s app stores would make it impossible for new users to download the app, and it would also slowly cripple the functionality of the service since Telegram would have no way to send its 800 million monthly active users software updates.

The Night Before the October 7 Attacks: Maria Rashed, from Tel Aviv to the Gaza Strip, walked into the news channels (The Daily News Network, WIRED)

Maria Rashed, a longtime resident of Tel Aviv who recently moved to London, had flown home to Nazareth for her sister’s engagement party the night before the October 7 attacks. She tells WIRED that it was difficult to wake up facing war. A Palestinian who grew up in a Christian family, Rashed is now an independent journalist. The morning of October 7, she scoured mainstream platforms, especially Instagram. But in the absence of official information, she wanted to see for herself how Hamas fighters had entered Israel. “The only way for me to do that was to go on Telegram, enter the channel related to Hamas’ press team,” she says. There you could see all the videos of the attack.

During the course of the day, Telegram, which has 800 million users worldwide, became the main source of videos and information spreading to other social media platforms, including X, Instagram, and TikTok, where content was being reposted with little to no verification.