Australia's online safety regulator has taken Telegram to court over extremist content, seeking penalties of up to A$54.6 million ($38 million), and raised the possibility of asking a court to shut the service down in the country.

The eSafety Commissioner filed civil penalty proceedings in the Federal Court on Thursday after a year-long investigation. It alleges Telegram failed to detect known "pro-terror material" including the live-streamed 2019 Christchurch mosque shooting and the 2022 Buffalo supermarket attack, which stayed up for nearly three months, and that its terms of service did not prohibit pro-terror material across all parts of the app.

Julie Inman Grant, the eSafety Commissioner, told BBC News that the platform had kept a "permissive environment" in which extremist content was "very easy to find," and that it "only serves to desensitise, to normalise and to sometimes radicalise" users. Telegram was also "sometimes used to plan attacks," she added.

Australia does not license platforms, Inman Grant noted, but "we could apply to the federal court and ask that the service be ceased." She added: "We've never used those powers. We'll see how this all plays out." The regulator issued Telegram an infringement notice for nearly $1 million in February last year over a five-month delay in answering questions about terrorist and child sexual exploitation material. Telegram called that penalty "unfair and disproportionate" and said it would appeal.



Three jurisdictions, one complaint

The filing landed a day after Russia's FSB charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov with aiding terrorism and placed him on an international wanted list, alleging the platform failed to remove channels used by Ukrainian intelligence and extremist groups. He faces up to life in prison if convicted there.

Durov was separately indicted in France in 2024 over drug trafficking, organized fraud and child sexual abuse material on Telegram, and released under judicial supervision. Durov denies wrongdoing and called the case "legally and logically absurd."

A Telegram spokesperson told the BBC that its "extensive" anti-terrorism efforts were "well documented," adding: "We reject these allegations and will contest them in court."

The action is a test of Australia's 2021 law requiring platforms to keep pro-terror material off their networks, and comes on the heels of the country’s ban on social media for under-16s, which was spearheaded by Inman Grant.

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