Apple is being sued by the Coalition for a more secure network for not removing access to Telegram while still blocking Parler, and also alleges that hate and extremist groups use it to attack the Capitol.
Filed Sunday in U.S. District Court for the Northern California District, Ambassador Marc Ginsberg’s lawsuit and the Coalition for a Safer Web accuse Apple of allowing Telegram to be available in the App Store. This “despite Apple’s knowledge that Telegram is being used to intimidate, threaten and coerce members of the public.”
Presented as a “non-partisan, nonprofit advocacy organization” to force the removal of extremist and terrorist content from social media platforms, the Coalition claims that Apple does not comply with its own policies and guidelines regarding applications related to Telegram. In doing so, Apple allows the most malicious users of Telegram to continue their activities.
The lawsuit comes at the end of a week in which Apple, Google, Amazon and others cut ties with Parler for not managing the content of the app generated by its users. It was alleged that the app had been used to plan and coordinate illegal activities in Washington DC, including taking the U.S. chapter.
Indeed, the lawsuit is pressuring Apple to closely examine Telegram with the aim of destabilizing the encrypted messaging app for allegedly carrying out similar activities.
According to a June 2020 CSW press release quoted by the lawsuit, Telegram is used as a “communication channel for the Russian government and white neo-Nazi nationalist groups and affiliates, sowing misinformation and racial division in the United States and Europe. ”
Ginsberg also wrote to Apple CEO Tim Cook on behalf of CSW in July, calling for Telegram to be temporarily disfigured, due to its role in “inciting extremist violence.”
There is also the accusation that “anti-black and anti-Semitic groups have openly used Telegram with little or no content moderation on the part of Telegram’s management.” Despite CSW’s warnings and media reports about the application, Apple “has not taken any action against Telegram comparable to the action it has taken against Parler to force Telegram to improve its content moderation policies.”
The lawsuit also alleges that Telegram is being used to “coordinate and incite extreme violence” ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. “Some users have asked fans to abandon plans for a second protest in Washington in favor of surprise attacks across the country,” the presentation states.
It also mentions how Ginsberg has suffered emotional anguish and anxiety due to misinformation and incitement to violence against Jews. Because Ginsberg is Jewish and in the public eye, he is forced to “live in fear of the violence of religious motives perpetrated against him,” which makes him fear for his life and that of his family.
The lawsuit also cites an injustice in the way Apple enforces its rules, citing both Parler’s withdrawal and Epic Games’ “Fortnite” withdrawal for violating its guidelines. Meanwhile, the use of Telegram is said to violate App Store guidelines since the app’s launch in 2013, in several ways.
In the case of the Telegram developers, the CSW states that “they have not taken any significant action to curb these flagrant, systematic and ongoing violations of the defendant’s application guidelines by Telegram users.”
The lawsuit demands a jury trial and asks the court to provide compensatory damages to each plaintiff, granting a ban prohibiting Telegram from the App Store until it meets Apple’s guidelines and legal costs.
Telegram has a history with Apple in terms of its users and content hosted on the service, and Apple gained access in 2018 due to the presence of child pornography. In October, Apple demanded the removal of publications related to the protests in Belarus.
In April 2018, Russian telecommunications regulator Roskomnadzor ordered Apple to stop downloading Telegram, in part because the app’s developers refused to hand over the encryption keys to the government, as required by the Russian legislation. Although the political ban prevented app updates from happening for some time, Apple approved app updates in June of that year.