The Internet, whose name was recently written with a capital letter, has become firmly entrenched in society and has become synonymous with the word "information".

It is a mistake to believe that virtual information is distributed strictly within the domain zone of a particular state - these rules do not apply here, and you can endlessly generate domains and mirrors, but this text is not about the web, but about Telegram and IT giants.

There are rather strict requirements for software developers for the right to publish their product in GooglePlay or AppStore.

Failure to comply with these rules, coupled with political trends, is costly both to the software developers themselves and to those who create the devices.

For example, Huawei still shows a good face in a bad game: the company's flagships, the P40 series smartphones, are completely deprived of the well-known GooglePlay app store, and attracting developers to its own store is not a matter of one day.

Therefore, you cannot do without dancing with tambourines in order to install some software.

Freedom of speech and extremism: a fine line of Telegram

The same fate of becoming "unsettled" periodically threatens the Telegram cloud messenger in some countries.

He was banned for two years in Russia, a five-year struggle with the "cart" in China, partial blocking of service in Iran, Indonesia and other countries.

All this is the result of the fact that Telegram has a large number of radical channels that disseminate and promote calls for terrorism and other information prohibited by law, and the service administration refuses to provide local special services with the data of users involved in this.

But the only difference is that Telegram deliberately keeps silent that ordinary people - messenger users who, willy-nilly, become victims of extremists, do not need encryption keys or personal data of users at all.

They just need a sense of security, which, by the way, was promised to everyone by Pavel Durov.

In practice, everything is different: we ignore whom we need, we protect who we don’t need.

This, apparently, explains the fact that in Belarus at the end of summer the "cart" became a real engine and instrument of protest against the current government.

Every day the number of channels, directly or indirectly coordinating protests in Belarus, grew exponentially.

Even a record was broken in the national segment - more than 2 million subscribers in one of these channels.

True, there were hardly a million real Belarusians on this channel.

But this did not stop to warm up the situation and attract to the channel those people who are called the protest mass.

Even Durov was probably surprised by this phenomenon.

But along with the channels - the coordinators of mass actions, communities appeared with an obvious radical coloring.

At first they were called "Terrorists of Belarus", now - "Punishers".

Searching for them in the search engine "carts" is no longer so easy: recently they are in the "shadow bath" on some devices.

Today, such Telegram channels unite more than 73 thousand messenger users, and you do not need to have accurate statistics on age to conclude that they are mainly teenagers and very young people - this can be seen from the comments, a huge number of mistakes and slang expressions.

The propaganda posted on such channels is primarily aimed at inciting social enmity in society, it is young people who are provoked to commit specific crimes.

A concrete example: on September 2, one of the channels published information and personal data of a newspaper journalist.

From the post it was possible to find out where the correspondent lives, what car he drives and where he parks it at night.

A few days later, the car was set on fire.

This is not the only example, but it is quite indicative.

Isn't this the propaganda of violence, the prohibition of which is said in the terms of the cloud messenger policy?

Only instead of instantly blocking such channels at the request of Apple or deleting all posts in them, Durov posts a poll in the Belarusian Telegram segment: "Delete?"

Sly, but not new.

In mid-August, there was already a poll "Who did you vote for in the presidential elections in the Republic of Belarus?"

But it is unlikely that it is objective: almost 25% of the population of Belarus is made up of rural residents, and in small towns not everyone uses Telegram enough to participate in surveys.

And the cart is still there

But back to the rules and those who can break them.

It turns out that Telegram prohibits "promoting violence in public Telegram channels, bots, etc.", but he himself refuses to comply with this prohibition.

But if there is a rule and it is not observed, then there should be an appropriate reaction from those who follow the implementation of the rules.

  • © Telegram screenshot

However, in fact, when they point to specific Telegram channels where violence is advancing, and Telegram does not respond to them, we can conclude that under the slogan of freedom of speech, Telegram, allegedly without noticing, secretly supports extremist manifestations.

And in this case, the mask of freedom of speech rather does not hide the true face of Telegram, but, on the contrary, reveals it in all its glory.

Indeed: it is stupid to cut the branch on which you yourself sit.

Due to which you exist, due to which you are popular, due to which you gain hundreds of millions of users, huge capitalization and want to enter the circle of monopolists of world online platforms such as Apple and Google.

However, in fact, under the slogan of freedom of speech and opinion, the secrets of personal life, Telegram collected all the world's criminal organizations on its channels.

Isn't the position “not to promote violence” a fiction in Telegram's politics?

Do not forget that someday you will either have to take off the cross or wear panties.

* * *

Today, only those companies that have done something global for the development of the Internet have the right to form safety rules and just good manners on the Internet.

Apple, Google, Microsoft - they are called IT giants and they are primarily responsible for ending terrorism and violence in the world using Internet products.

Incitement to hatred between people of one state is a bad business, which Telegram can still stop itself, keeping a human face.

To do this, it is enough just to hear the opinion of those very giants of the Internet.

And to compete, argue and, like a naughty teenager, do in spite of everyone, expanding the Telegram audience by supporting violence and extremism - this, unfortunately, has a bad effect on karma.

The main thing to understand is that these channels are of interest only to criminals who want to hurt and harm people.

Making money on extremist propaganda is terrible, but without extremist propaganda, unfortunately, no one is interested in these channels, because their goal is to provoke violence and make money on it.

Telegram will stand next to Apple and Google when it prohibits extremism on its channels and begins to finally fulfill what it itself promised people.

The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.