Telegram plans child abuse crackdown following Pavel Durov’s arrest in Paris

The social media platform, which claims to have more than 950 million monthly active users, will use tools and data from IWF to “detect, disable, remove and block images of child sexual abuse”, the charity said.

The move comes after Pavel Durov, the Russian-born founder and CEO of Telegram, was arrested in August at a Paris airport and later charged on several counts of failing to curb extremist and terrorist content on the app.

Prosecutors also alleged that the platform failed to take action against images of child sexual abuse. Durov, who was released on bail of five million euros ($5.6 million), later announced a crackdown on illegal content.

FIFA previously said it had found thousands of cases of images of child sexual abuse on Telegram since 2022.

The charity is a world leader in tracking and reporting images and videos of abuse, and is one of the few non-law enforcement bodies worldwide with the legal power to search for such material.

It is hoped that the new initiative will prevent the spread of illegal images on public parts of the Telegram platform.

Derek Ray Hill, interim CEO of the International Weightlifting Federation, described the partnership as “a transformative first step in a much longer journey.”

“We look forward to seeing what additional steps we can take together to create a world where the spread of sexual assault material online is nearly impossible,” he added.

The app will now use IWF’s unique digital fingerprints of millions of known images and videos related to child sexual abuse to identify when criminal content is being shared.

IWF will also report directly to Telegram when images of child sexual abuse are discovered.

Remy Vaughn, Telegram’s head of press and media relations, said the datasets and tools “will strengthen the mechanisms Telegram has in place to protect its public platform.”