Messaging app Telegram has been in the spotlight since its owner Pavel Durov was detained in France on Saturday. According to Reuters, the 39-year-old billionaire was arrested as part of a preliminary police investigation into allegedly allowing a wide range of crimes due to a lack of moderators on Telegram and a lack of cooperation with police, a French police source said.
The company has always portrayed itself as a haven for free speech and a safe space for political dissidents. The claims have only increased since its CEO's arrest. On Sunday, Telegram in a statement said, "Telegram's CEO Pavel Durov has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe. It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform."
The incident has once again shed light on the misuse of the the platform across various sectors in India such as paper leaks, child pornography and rigging stock prices.
Let us take a look at the incidents that have put the messaging app under scanner in the country.
Paper leaks
The menace of exam paper leaks in India has often flourished with the help of Telegram. The most recent examples of it are the NEET-UG and the UGC-NET exams. The exam was conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) on June 18 in two shifts across the country and later cancelled after a portion of the question paper was leaked on Telegram.
Addressing the issue, Union minister Dharmendra Pradhan said, “We tallied the questions with the original UGC-NET questions and they matched… All these activities took place on Telegram these days. It is a challenge to track the complex nature of Telegram without a high level investigation.”
Similarly, many NEET aspirants reportedly received copies of the question paper a day before the exam. The NEET-UG row led to the Supreme Court noting, "If paper leak is taking place through Telegram, WhatsApp and electronic means, then it spreads like wildfire."
Stock price rigging
Telegram has often been under the radar of SEBI for stock market rigging. In 2023, the Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI) imposed fines of more than Rs 2.84 crores on the administrators of a Telegram channel for stock recommendations.
The market regulator also made public stock price rigging racket via Telegram in June 2024. It indicated that the owner of a group paid Rs 20 lakh by people connected to a listed firm.
Cyber crimes
In a Hindustan Times report, the publication quoted a senior police officer from the Delhi Police cybercrime unit pointing out that the anonymity feature of Telegram makes investigation difficult.
“One of the most rampant scams on Telegram is investment fraud in which a user is added to a group and is suggested to invest their money in stocks on a fake application which mirrors a legitimate stock trading app,” the officer explained. “This scam is where most people are losing their money on Telegram,” the official told Hindustan Times.
The officer also stated that the company has often been lacklustre in cooperation in investigation.
Lack of transparency
Rakesh Maheshwari, former head of the ministry of electronics and technology’s cyber laws division told Hindustan Times that Telegram has especially been non-cooperative in two sectors: obscenity and copyright.
Talking to the publication, he said, “Telegram was, on occasions, reluctant to cooperate though it did appoint an India-based grievance officer, chief compliance officer and nodal contact person, and opened an office in India [Gurugram], following the notification of IT Rules 2021.
"They would generally comply with Section 69A blocking orders but in few other cases, where the Ministry would forward the grievances as received, they were unwilling to comply even if the content appeared to be potentially illegal and harmful, or led to such URLs,” he added.
Telegram does not officially publish a monthly transparency report either which is a requirement under the IT Rules 2021.
Now that the platform is facing scrutiny in Paris, it will be interesting to note whether the Indian government will also consider taking some form of action against Telegram.
(With inputs from Agencies)