The EU is almost incapable of resisting the propaganda spread by Russia via Telegram
Russian propagandists are actively spreading their narratives in the EU via Telegram, taking advantage of the messenger’s lenient rules. European authorities are virtually powerless to resist this influence. This is stated in the article Bloomberg under the headline “Too Small to Police, Too Big to Ignore”.
In particular, after the assassination attempt on pro-Russian Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, conspiracy theories quickly emerged on social media, which the authorities later denied. However, these narratives have already gone viral on Telegram. The publication calls the messenger “a key weapon of pro-Kremlin accounts to spread disinformation aimed at undermining support for Ukraine.” Russian intelligence officers have also used Telegram to recruit petty criminals for sabotage in European capitals.
EU rules and Telegram
One of Telegram’s key strengths is its lack of accountability, which poses significant challenges for European officials. Despite their new powers to regulate information on the Internet, they are almost powerless over Telegram. Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has said that Russian disinformation is spreading on Telegram “openly and completely uncontrollably,” and requests to remove disturbing content often go unanswered.
The impact of disinformation and the EU’s actions
A typical pro-Russian propaganda campaign includes posts on social media, stories in state media, fabricated “news” and anonymous comments on the websites of real publications. In this ecosystem, Telegram functions as a central hub for content distribution. Daniel Milo, ex-director of the Center for Countering Hybrid Threats at the Ministry of the Interior of Slovakia, noted that Telegram’s content rules are very lenient, making it popular with pro-Russian figures. Despite the EU’s increased powers to combat illegal and harmful content, these measures are ineffective against Telegram, which has 41 million active users in Europe – below the 45 million threshold required to trigger strict measures under the EU’s Digital Services Act.
Disguise as news outlets
When Viginum, the French service for combating foreign disinformation, announced that it was preparing for a large-scale disinformation campaign, it turned out that Telegram content was central to the campaign. After the assassination attempt on the Slovak prime minister, Telegram shared a post from a website pretending to be the British Daily Telegraph, claiming that pro-Ukrainian forces were responsible for the shooting of Fico. The disinformation campaign also sought to undermine faith in Ukraine’s military efforts by posing as news outlets. This campaign was targeted at German audiences in order to weaken the credibility of lawmakers. The group also distributed videos falsely claiming to be from Al Jazeera and EuroNews.
Regulatory issues
Despite the efforts of national agencies such as the Belgian Institute for Post and Telecommunications, national authorities are limited in their ability to take action on content. Telegram regulates content in accordance with its terms of service, but moderation remains lax. Kaja Kallas emphasized that if Telegram were recognized as a major online platform, it would be obliged to take measures against the spread of disinformation and introduce stricter content moderation protocols, ensuring a level playing field for all platforms. According to the EU’s internal assessment, the main topics of Russian disinformation include the war against Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East, immigration, climate change, and the upcoming European Parliament elections.
