Australia targets Telegram as Russia charges its founder with terrorism

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What do the internet and national borders have in common? As today’s Free Speech Dispatch illustrates, both are currently hotbeds for government action regulating what information and material people can access, and how. When it comes to the internet, authorities are targeting not just what individuals say online, but the tools and platforms they use to express themselves, as readers will see in stories from Australia, Russia, France, India, and more. And while regulations of internet tools are a somewhat nebulous concept, governments are meanwhile seeking to use borders in a much more literal way — as a corporeal barrier between their nations and people expressing ideas they hope to exclude, as I explain below. 

Telegram is on the hot seat again

Pavel Durov and Telegram, the immensely popular messaging app he founded, have faced legal trouble before. Russia has repeatedly clashed with the platform, while French authorities arrested Durov in 2024 over allegations that Telegram enabled criminal activity. Now the company and its founder face a new set of allegations on opposite sides of the world.

In Australia, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant announced last week that the agency is taking legal action against Telegram over its failure to remove content deemed extremist, including videos of mass shootings and Islamic State beheadings, in violation of a law requiring the removal of terrorist content. The regulator says some material remained accessible on the service long after Telegram had been put on notice.” In a statement, Telegram replied, “We reject these allegations and will contest them in court.”

Durov’s legal troubles are continuing in Russia, too. Last week, the Federal Security Service claimed Telegram did not take down “numerous channels, chats and bots” allegedly operated by “Ukrainian intelligence agencies, terrorist and extremist organizations to prepare and coordinate acts of sabotage and terrorism, mass murder, and cyberfraud” in Russia, which resulted in “numerous human casualties.” Authorities charged Durov, who lives in Dubai, with aiding terrorism and placed him on an international wanted list. 

Where borders and speech collide

Should foreigners be expelled from a country over views they express while visiting, working, or living there? 

In the United States, FIRE is currently suing over Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s use of two federal immigration law provisions that grant him vast power to revoke legal immigrants’ visas and deport them for protected speech. Similar conflicts are unfolding abroad, as governments turn borders into ideological checkpoints.

In Argentina, President Javier Milei just signed an emergency decree establishing that the government can deport or bar entry to foreigners who “incite or disseminate messages of hatred, discrimination and/or violence against the Argentine people” or “insult national symbols.” Much is left up in the air by this decree, but one thing is clear: It offers authorities much greater power to target foreigners for deportation if they have engaged in government criticism deemed “hateful” or “insulting” by officials. 

Two European nations also just removed controversial figures for their speech. Pascal Robinson-Foster, frontman for British punk-rap duo Bob Vylan, was recently denied entry at Berlin’s airport and deported to the UK. The Intercept obtained police files addressing the entry ban on Robinson-Foster. Police wrote that his presence would cause “considerable reputational damage” by suggesting Germany is making “no effort to prevent the spread of the propagated antisemitism and the associated calls to violence.” Concerns about Robinson-Foster’s entry no doubt in part rested on his controversial “Death, death to the IDF” chant at Glastonbury Festival last year. German authorities reportedly later lifted the entry ban. 

France’s Interior Ministry also just expelled Russian commentator Xenia Fedorova, a commentator in French and European media and former chief of RT France. Officials’ expulsion order against Fedorova alleges she acts “as a conduit for disinformation campaigns orchestrated by the Russian authorities.” President Emmanuel Macron has long sparred with Fedorova, whose lawyer intends to file an appeal on free speech grounds. 

France approves internet age-gating 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced last month that an EU-wide youth social media ban is coming this fall, though specifics of the ban are not yet known. France, though, isn’t waiting any longer. French lawmakers, the first in the European Union to do so, officially approved an under-15 ban last month, with Macron proclaiming that “France is leading the way in Europe in protecting our children and our teenagers.” As FIRE has frequently warned in recent months, age-gating teens off the internet raises a lot of privacy and censorship concerns for adults.

More free speech news from Europe

As I wrote last week, the United Kingdom experienced yet another social-media censorship controversy after Nigel Farage and Reform UK called on police to arrest Green Party leader Zack Polanski. Polanski had accepted a tag on an Instagram carousel that included a photo of a man wearing a shirt with a guillotine and the words “We’re only making plans for Nigel.” He said he removed the tag after learning about it. Police later said they were not looking into Polanski but were pursuing the man pictured wearing the shirt. 

London’s Metropolitan Police also confirmed dozens more arrests of activists holding signs in support of Palestine Action outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court. They join hundreds of others facing terror charges after the government proscribed the group.

There are new judicial developments in Europe, too. In a troubling ruling, an Italian appeals court reaffirmed journalist Fabio Butera’s civil liability for third parties’ comments on his Facebook page. A lower court ordered Butera to pay damages for defamatory comments other users had posted on his page about a fellow journalist Butera criticized.

‘Speech that is lawful when delivered offline could trigger criminal liability once posted online.’

And Päivi Räsänen, a Finnish member of Parliament found guilty of hate speech earlier this year by Finland’s Supreme Court, is taking her case to the European Court of Human Rights. Räsänen is appealing to the ECHR over the ruling that she committed incitement against a group for reposting a religious pamphlet she co-wrote in 2004, “Male and Female He Created Them.” Räsänen’s conviction also resulted in her being denied an Electronic Travel Authorisation for the United Kingdom this summer.

As The Future of Free Speech’s Natalie Alkiviadou and Jacob Mchangama, also a FIRE senior fellow, argue in a new article at the Journal of Free Speech Law, it’s possible that hate speech laws may become even more entrenched across the European Union. EU member states individually already wield hate speech laws, but since 2020, von der Leyen has advocated making hate speech an EU-level crime. While some measures have stalled, they write, “the Commission has signaled a narrower, ‘online‑only’ route: a legislative initiative under existing Article 83(1) crime categories (e.g., computer crime) to harmonize definitions of online hate offences. In practice, this would still embed criminal prohibitions more deeply into national criminal law and EU digital enforcement frameworks.” There are a number of serious concerns this maneuver would raise. Among them? “Speech that is lawful when delivered offline could trigger criminal liability once posted online.” Read the full article, A Cure Worse than the Disease: Why the EU’s Proposal to Criminalize Hate Speech Violates Freedom of Expression — and Won’t Reduce Intolerance or Extremism, to learn more. 

More political arrests, complaints, and prosecutions — some with severe sentences

• Two lawyers and two activists are facing criminal libel charges in the Philippines for their involvement in advocacy against a mining company. 
• Vietnamese authorities arrested five people on “anti-state propaganda” charges for publishing a book about former President Ho Chi Minh. They could face decades in prison if convicted.
• Russian activist Ilya Remeslo — best known for his support of the Kremlin and antagonism toward the late opposition figure Alexei Navalny — was arrested for spreading false information after publishing a surprise manifesto critical of President Putin.
• A Thai appeals court upheld a two-year prison sentence handed down to human rights lawyer Anon Nampa in one of the 14 lese-majeste cases against him for his criticism of the monarchy.
• An Azerbaijani court sentenced a group of journalists and media workers to a whopping 12 to 15 years in prison for financial crimes, allegations which the accused say are trumped up and politically motivated.  

Censorship amid protest and turmoil in India

It’s been a busy summer in Indian politics, as the youth-led Cockroach Janta Party (named after the country’s chief justice called the young activists “cockroaches”) snowballed from an online movement complaining about a voided exam to mass protests across the country. The movement found success, with Prime Minister Modi’s government acceding to protesters’ demands including the ousting of the education minister. But protesters are paying the price, too — hundreds are facing charges, including for “abusive slogans” about Modi. The censorship has extended online, with authorities directing social media platforms to “remove content they considered abusive, objectionable or in violation of Indian law.”

At the same time, India’s Cyber Crime Coordination Centre ordered GitHub to remove, within three hours, three repositories hosting Bitchat, a messenger app from Jack Dorsey that operates using Bluetooth-mesh technology rather than accounts or phone numbers. Authorities targeted the source code on GitHub because Bitchat’s decentralized technology cannot be targeted the same way as other apps. The Centre’s order alleged that “anonymous communication without registration, phone numbers or centralized logging,” could “significantly” hinder “lawful interception, attribution, and investigation by law enforcement agencies.” It also warned that the app could be used to coordinate “unlawful assemblies” and “dissemination of misinformation.” It marks yet another notable effort by authorities not just to unmask anonymous speakers, but to crack down on the tools that could aid in anonymity.

And last week, both houses of Parliament approved the Prevention of Insults to National Honour (Amendment) Bill, which would grant Vande Mataram the same protections as the national anthem. Under the bill, insults to the Vande Mataram, a poem adapted as the national song of India, can be punished with fines or up to three years in prison. Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, a member of the lower house of Parliament and an opponent of the bill, said during debates, “We respect the national song… we can even stand for it… but you cannot force us to say it with you.”