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Telegram limits access to Hamas channels. PHOTO/DAILY
GAZA – Russian messaging application Telegram has quietly begun restricting access to several channels affiliated with the Hamas militant group. The official accounts of Hamas, Qassam Brigades and Gaza Now are now inaccessible.
Reporting from Al-Jazeera, Friday (3/11/2023), these Telegram accounts cannot currently be opened in the Telegram version downloaded from Google Play or Apple’s App Store. Whereas previously users were free to access.
However, the account, which has gathered hundreds of thousands of new followers since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, can still be accessed from the online version of Telegram and the version downloaded directly from the Telegram website.
The access restrictions came after the Zachor Legal Institute, a US-based lobby group that campaigns against anti-Israel movements, wrote to Apple regarding Hamas accounts still being accessible on iOS.
Apple and Telegram did not respond to requests for comment, but Google said in a statement that Google Play requires apps that display user-generated content to moderate egregious content,
Google said what the account shared included content that encouraged terrorist acts, incited violence, or celebrated terrorist attacks, as accused by the United States, the European Union, Britain, Canada, Australia, Japan and Paraguay.
Telegram itself has been widely used by Hamas to promote its message and uses the application to broadcast its attacks on southern Israeli communities in real time.
(wbs)