Federal Interior Minister Faeser can chalk up a success: After weeks of efforts to get Telegram to delete right-wing extremist channels, the messenger service is finally responding. This also affects the chats of conspiracy theorist Hildmann.

After massive pressure from the German government on Telegram, the company is taking noticeable action against hate and incitement on the net for the first time in Germany, according to a report. The online service has blocked a total of 64 channels, the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” reported, citing security circles. According to the report, these include the channels of anti-Semite and conspiracy ideologue Attila Hildmann. The closure is said to be due to pressure from the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). The BKA had sent corresponding deletion requests to Telegram, the newspaper further reported.

A total of 64 have been taken into account so far, it said. According to the report, a second working-level conversation between the government and Telegram had taken place on Thursday. The government and the company wanted to “continue to remain in close exchange,” it said after the talks, according to SZ. The company’s founder Pavel Durov had already assured this in the first conversation, in which he himself had participated. The Ministry of the Interior has long demanded that hate and incitement on Telegram be outlawed and removed. So far, however, the company has not complied with the legal obligation to delete.

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser reiterated that she will continue to crack down on the Telegram case. “Telegram must no longer be an accelerant for right-wing extremists, conspiracy ideologues and other agitators,” she told the newspaper. “Death threats and other dangerous hate posts must be deleted and face clear criminal consequences.” Faeser sees the company’s first major deletion action as a success of weeks of pressure on Telegram.

“The Federal Criminal Police Office has significantly strengthened the investigation,” she said. “I have built up clear pressure from the first day in office to get Telegram to cooperate. That pressure is working.” Telegram is used by radical vaccination opponents and contrarians, among others, to network for so-called walks against Corona measures. The Thuringian Office for the Protection of the Constitution had recently complained, for example, that a particularly large number of coup fantasies were spread there. The platform was also used by numerous right-wing extremists.

(Translated from German with DeepL)