How Hamas uses Telegram to spread terror and war propaganda (2024)

The Hamas propaganda video shows a group of gunmen sitting on the terrace of a house in Kibbutz Holit, having shot their way in. There is no violence, but still the contents are chilling.

One gunman bounces a crying Israeli baby in his arms, patting its back. Another balances a young boy on his knee and rocks a baby in a pram. A Kalashnikov sits on the table next to a half-eaten mango. The boy’s foot is being bandaged.

“We have mercy in our hearts. We will not kill the children like you are doing,” one of the masked men says to camera. The clip cuts away to the Israeli boy being given a drink. He is told to say “bismillah” — “in the name of god” — before taking a sip. Their message is clear, but the massacre of 13 people at the kibbutz tells the real story.

This video and dozens of others showing the gruesome aftermath of the terrorist attacks have been viewed millions of times on social media. They usually have one source: Telegram.

The messaging app has become a global phenomenon with 700 million users, most of whom use it for ordinary communication. But it is also a haven for the world’s terrorists. Jihadists, neo-Nazis and extremists of all sorts take advantage of the app’s lack of moderation to use its “channels” — a one-way stream of content — to pump out propaganda and violence.

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Founded by the Russian developer Pavel Durov, Telegram’s encrypted service is rooted in values of anti-censorship and privacy. Durov, 39, a libertarian, was once called “Russia’s Zuckerberg” after starting VK, a social network like Facebook. He and his brother Nikolai were forced out of their homeland in 2014 after refusing to co-operate with demands from President Putin’s regime for information about opposition leaders.

Telegram has become their focus and is now based in Dubai, run by a small secretive team of engineers with servers based across the globe to frustrate attempts at regulation. Durov regularly posts pictures of his sculpted body from stunning locations. He eschews alcohol, nicotine, drugs, caffeine, fast food, sugar and television. Forbes estimates his wealth at $11.5 billion.

Although the app has also been used by activists in authoritarian regimes, its dark side has long troubled those trying to combat terrorism and misinformation. Many of the channels have been tolerated because their subscriber numbers are low, but the October 7 attacks have led to a surge for Hamas’s channels. In one week more than 500,000 joined the one run by its military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

Adam Hadley, chief executive of Tech Against Terrorism, a group that combats extremism online, said: “We all know that Telegram is fundamental to the terrorist content ecosystem. However, we’ve tolerated it over the years because of low levels of awareness. What changed with this [attack] is we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people knowing about particular channels ... all of a sudden it becomes a broadcast medium.”

Hamas’s content has also morphed since October 7. Rita Katz, executive director of the Site Intelligence Group in Washington, said: “Hamas’s media has changed completely since its barbaric act of terror on Israel. The group is relying on its multiple Telegram venues to mobilize followers all over the world in a similar way that Isis [Islamic State] did.

“As somebody who has been working in counterterrorism for 25 years, it’s impossible to ignore the similarity of Hamas’s latest propaganda to that of Isis, and with constant non-stop media. The style of the short video clips showing hostages and executions, portraying itself simultaneously as kind but also as savage killers — it’s all Isis.”

One clip showed the beheading of a dead Israeli soldier with a garden implement. Another on the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades’ feed shows Mia Shem, 21, a French-Israeli woman who was abducted from the Supernova music festival, receiving medical attention and pleading to be released. President Macron said it was “an ignominy to take innocent people hostage and put them on show in this odious way”. The French government is “enraged” by Telegram and Macron has been briefed personally on it, sources have said.

Europe has had the greatest success in forcing Telegram to act. It took down Isis channels after pressure from Europol four years ago and at a heated meeting of the EU Internet Forum, an anti-terrorism body, last week Germany pressured the company to move against Hamas. Its channels have now been blocked in the country.

Durov is determined, however, to resist more pressure to take Hamas channels offline. “Tackling war-related coverage is seldom obvious,” he said on Telegram last week. “Hamas used Telegram to warn civilians in Ashkelon to leave the area ahead of their missile strikes. Would shutting down their channel help save lives — or would it endanger more lives?

“It’s always tempting to act on emotional impulses. But such complex situations require thorough consideration that should also take into account the differences between social platforms.”

He added that because the channels are subscription based, “it’s unlikely that Telegram channels can be used to significantly amplify propaganda”.

Experts disagree. Kyle Walter, head of research at Logically, which monitors disinformation, said: “The bigger concern is content from Telegram circulating on mainstream platforms. What we’ve seen now, particularly with the lack of content moderation that exists at X [Twitter], is that content is everywhere.” He said the Russian celebrity Hasbulla, who has more than eight million followers on Instagram, had shared paraglider footage of a Hamas fighter killing civilians.

Katz says the attacks have united and inspired the worldwide jihadist community online. “Immediately after Hamas began publishing news of its operation, Sunni and Shiite extremist factions alike began flooding social media platforms with celebratory messages, as did their scholars,” she said. “It is virtually unheard of for Shiite and Sunni extremists to be on the same page about a subject, yet here were all of their online outlets, forwarding, mirroring deluges of updates from Hamas.”

This week Ken McCallum, the director-general of MI5, warned about the threat of self-initiated terrorists inspired by online propaganda or videos of violence.

In the UK, Hadley is urging the police to serve Telegram with a section 3 notice under the Terrorism Act 2006. This requires the service provider to take terrorist content offline and removes one of their defences if they are prosecuted for encouraging or disseminating terrorism.

The provision has never been used, however, because it has no effective enforcement mechanism. It is unlikely to be issued against a foreign company, according to Jonathan Hall KC, the independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, who believes the law needs to be updated.

“The fundamental difficulty with current terrorism legislation is that it was drafted a long time ago and it depends upon criminal sanctions against individuals who either are in or can be brought into the jurisdiction,” he said. “If there are changes to be made in relation to Telegram and Hamas, it is going to be based on looking again at how the law categorises support given to prescribed organisations and to recognise that facilitating propaganda is a really valuable service for proscribed organisations and considering whether or not the law can catch that sort of activity.”

Any action is more likely to come from Ofcom, which will be given powers within weeks to regulate Telegram under the Online Safety Act. Terrorist material will have to be taken down or the provider will face being cut off in the UK, fined up to 10 per cent of global revenue, or criminal sanctions against senior executives. Ofcom can also force Telegram to enforce its own terms and conditions, which say that users agree “not to promote violence”.

For Hadley, this is a key moment for regulators. “To what extent is one CEO of one platform ... what right do they have to overrule what has been decided by democracies and also to fly in the face of what everyone else is doing?” he asked. “I would say this is a litmus test for all of the laws and regulations that everyone has been kind of focused on for so long. What is the government actually going to do?”