Australia’s Online Safety Regulator Fines Telegram Nearly $1 Million for Delayed Response

A close-up view of the Telegram messaging app is seen on a smartphone in London on May 25, 2017. Carl Court/Getty Images

Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant has fined Telegram nearly $1 million (US$640,000) for a 160-day delay in responding to a transparency reporting notice.

eSafety said it delivered Telegram, Meta, WhatsApp, Google, Reddit and X transparency reporting notices in March last year under the Online Safety Act 2021.

The online regulator asked Telegram and Reddit what they were doing to detect and remove child sexual exploitation and abuse on their platform.

At the time, she also asked Telegram, Google, Meta, X, WhatsApp, and Reddit to report on how they were protecting Australians from terrorist and violent extremist material and activity.

While Telegram did respond, the eSafety commissioner claims there was a delay until Oct. 13. Other social media platforms engaged by May 6.

As a result, eSafety said they considered Telegram to be non-compliant and delivered them a fine of $957,780 (US$610,500).

Telegram is a cloud-based messaging app launched in 2013 as an alternative to Whatsapp, enabling users to send private messages, media, and files with end-to-end encryption.

In an email, Telegram indicated it intended to contest the fine.

“The unfair and disproportionate penalty concerns only the response time frame, and we intend to appeal,” the company said, according to Reuters.

Transparency Not Voluntary: eSafety Commissioner

eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said the fine sends an important message to industry that timely transparency was not a voluntary requirement in Australia. She said the action reinforced the importance for all companies to comply with Australian law.

“Telegram took 160 days to provide information that was asked in the reporting notice and providing this information so late has obstructed eSafety from delivering its functions under the Online Safety Act for almost half a year,” she said.

Telegram has been provided with 28 days to pay the fine, request withdrawal of the fine or seek an extension to pay the fine.

“If Telegram chooses not to pay the infringement notice, it is open to the Commissioner to take other action, including seeking a civil penalty in the Federal Court of Australia,” the eSafety commissioner said.

The eSafety commissioner also noted the threat of terrorist and extremist material shared online remained “very real” and posed a “growing risk to the community.”

“The Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) recently raised Australia’s terror threat level to probable and has cited the online radicalisation of young people as a key factor driving this heightened threat,” she said.

ASIO Concerned Radicalisation of Young People Online

This comes after ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess warned about the dangers of young people being radicalised online.

Burgess warned a new generation of “digital natives” who have grown up entirely online would soon reach a vulnerable age for “radicalisation.”

“For some, their sense of normality, identity, and community will be more influenced by the online world than the real world,” he said on Feb. 19.

In his annual threat assessment speech for 2025, Burgess said if technology continued its current trajectory, it would be easier to find extremist material.

“And AI-fuelled algorithms will make it easier for extremist material to find vulnerable adolescent minds that are searching for meaning and connection,” he said. 

“These dynamics are of deep concern but we cannot afford to throw up our hands and say, all too hard. Our children deserve better than that.”

Burgess added when engagement with extremism was identified and addressed early, vulnerable children could be “diverted from the radicalisation path.”

Free Speech Concerns After eSafety Sends Out Thousands of Notices

Meanwhile, Liberal Senator Alex Antic has raised concerns about “censorship online” amid the eSafety Commissioner issuing “thousands of informal notices” to social media platforms.

“Frankly my concern is the use of things like children’s safety to otherwise put a chilling effect on free speech. You’ve got to remember, the office of the eSafety commissioner began as the office of the children’s eSafety commissioner and that bracket creep has now progressed to the point where the office is sending out informal notices,” Antic said on Sky News on Feb. 21.

“We know that over the term since 2021 this office (the eSafety commissioner) has been in power, 5,000 informal notices have been sent out to the various platforms and only 10 formal notices under the statutory powers.

“So look, the creep is on, and people should be concerned, and this should be a bigger issue for parliament.”