Brazil temporarily suspends Telegram app

Telegram icon on phone screen. Photo: AFP/TTXVN

The decision comes after a series of recent school violence incidents, including at least one involving exchanges of information within an anti-Semitic group.

Brazilian Justice Minister Flavio Dino said the court fined Telegram 1 million reais, or $198,000 a day, for failing to cooperate with an investigation by Brazilian authorities into neo-Nazi activity on social media. He said groups such as the Anti-Semitic Front or the Anti-Jewish Movement that operate online are the source of violence against children.

In connection with the investigation, documents from the judicial authority in Espirito Santo, southeastern Brazil, said that the authorities had asked Telegram to provide personal data of members of two groups operating on the application. However, Telegram did not seem to have any intention of cooperating, handing over only the data of the administrator of one of the two groups.

Recently, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced restrictions on social networks to prevent school violence. Accordingly, social networking sites will have to ban all content and users who promote or support violence in schools. In addition, the parent companies of social networks will have to provide the police with all data on all users who share violent content, blocking them from creating new accounts on the system.

Telegram is currently installed on about 53% of mobile phones in Brazil. In 2022, the app was the fastest-growing platform in the South American country. In March 2022, a Brazilian Supreme Court judge also suspended Telegram for failing to comply with a government order to remove false information during an election year. The ban was later lifted.

The Brazilian government is currently drafting a separate law to regulate social media activities.

According to VNA