Photo by Ivan Radic on Flickr.com
Telegram was fined 5.1 million euros for violating German laws by failing to appoint a representative in Germany.
A few months ago, Telegram, a cross-platform messaging application for both phones and computers, set a new milestone by reaching 1 billion downloads on the Google Play store.
Germany fined the Russian application, which has more users thanks to its usage on laptops running the iOS, Windows, macOS, and Linux operating systems.
According to a statement by the German Justice Office, Telegram did not provide a legitimate method of reporting information that violates the Network Enforcement Law (NetzDG).
In the announcement, it was said that Telegram could not appoint a representative in Germany. As a result, Telegram received a punishment of 5 million 125 thousand euros for failing to comply with German legislation in this situation.
In his assessment on the subject, German Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann stated that messaging applications and social network operators have a special responsibility to act against incitement to hatred and violence on their platforms, adding, “This legal obligation and this responsibility cannot be avoided by trying to be inaccessible.”
