The political pressure, with which the messenger service Telegram is supposed to finally take action against hate speech and calls for violence in German chat groups, seems to be working.
It is good news that representatives of the group's top management, which had moved from Russia to Dubai, had contact with the interior and justice ministries for the first time.
So far, all attempts by the federal government to get Telegram to delete tens of thousands of hate messages have been unsuccessful. The German state has not even succeeded in legally delivering deletion requests to the office address in the Persian Gulf in accordance with the Network Enforcement Act created specifically for this purpose. In order to maintain the pressure in the talks with Telegram, it is good that Minister of Justice Buschmann has now initiated fine proceedings.
The service, which is also valued by the opposition in an authoritarian country like Belarus, is used by conspiracy theorists and right-wing extremists in Germany to spread hate campaigns against politicians or vaccinators.
Telegram also just offered a forum for the unbearable malice of some users after the killing of two police officers.
Something is also happening at EU level, in addition to Telegram, the major platforms Facebook and YouTube are also to be reined in through strict conditions.
So far this has happened far too little.