How Telegram Became a Playground for Criminals, Extremists and Terrorists
孟建国, ADAM SATARIANO, AARON KROLIK, STEVEN LEE MYERS
The New York Times
Telegram has become a global sewer of criminal activity, disinformation, child sexual abuse material, terrorism and racist incitement, according to a four-month investigation by The New York Times that analyzed more than 3.2 million Telegram messages from over 16,000 channels. The company, which offers features that enable criminals, terrorists and grifters to organize at scale and to sidestep scrutiny from the authorities, has looked the other way as illegal and extremist activities have flourished openly on the app.《纽约时报》对1.6万个Telegram频道的320多万条信息进行了为期四个月的调查，结果显示，Telegram已经成为汇聚全球犯罪活动、虚假信息、儿童性虐待材料、恐怖主义和种族主义煽动的下水道。该公司提供的功能使犯罪分子、恐怖分子和骗子能够大规模组织起来，避开当局的审查，但当非法和极端主义活动在该应用上公开猖獗时，该公司却睁一只眼闭一只眼。The degree to which Telegram has been inundated by such content has not been previously reported. The Times investigation found 1,500 channels operated by white supremacists who coordinate activities among almost one million people around the world. At least two dozen channels sold weapons. In at least 22 channels with more than 70,000 followers, MDMA, cocaine, heroin and other drugs were advertised for delivery to more than 20 countries.Telegram被此类内容淹没的程度此前从未有过报道。时报的调查发现，白人至上主义者运营着1500个频道，策动全球近100万人的行动。至少有24个频道出售武器。在至少22个拥有7万以上用户的频道里，摇头丸、可卡因、海洛因和其他毒品的广告被投放到20多个国家。Hamas, ISIS and other terror groups have thrived on Telegram, often amassing large audiences across dozens of channels. The Times analyzed more than 40 channels associated with Hamas, which showed that average viewership surged up to 10 times after the Oct. 7 attacks, garnering more than 400 million views in October.哈马斯、ISIS和其他恐怖组织在Telegram上如鱼得水，经常在数十个频道上聚集大量受众。《纽约时报》分析了40多个与哈马斯有关的频道，结果显示，在10月7日袭击事件发生后，这些频道的平均浏览量飙升了10倍，10月份的浏览量超过了四亿。Telegram is “the most popular place for ill-intentioned, violent actors to congregate,” said Rebecca Weiner, the deputy commissioner for intelligence and counterterrorism at the New York Police Department. “If you’re a bad guy, that’s where you will land.”纽约警察局负责情报和反恐事务的副局长丽贝卡·韦纳说，Telegram是“居心不良的暴力行为者最常聚集的地方，如果你是一个坏人，那就是你的落脚点”。Operating like a stateless organization, Telegram has long behaved as if it were above the law — though that may be changing. Pavel Durov, the Russian-born founder of the platform, was arrested and charged in France last month for failure to cooperate with law enforcement and complicity in crimes committed on the service, including the distribution of child sexual abuse material, drug trafficking and fraud.Telegram像一个无国籍组织一样运作，长期以来的行为仿佛凌驾于法律之上——尽管这种情况可能正在改变。该平台的俄罗斯裔创始人帕维尔·杜罗夫上月在法国被捕并受到指控，罪名是未能与执法部门合作，以及在该平台上串谋犯罪，包括传播儿童性虐待材料、贩毒和欺诈。In many democratic countries, patience with the app is wearing thin. The European Union is exploring new oversight of Telegram under the Digital Services Act, a law that forces large online platforms to police their services more aggressively, two people familiar with the plans said.在许多民主国家，人们对这款应用的耐心正在消耗殆尽。两名知情人士表示，欧盟正在探索根据《数字服务法案》对Telegram进行新的监管。该法案迫使大型在线平台更积极地监管自己的服务。Telegram’s tolerance for toxic activities begins with Mr. Durov, 39, who runs the company with a devout belief that governments should not interfere in what people say or do online. This year, he wrote on his Telegram channel:Telegram对有害活动的容忍始于39岁的杜罗夫，他经营这家公司时坚信政府不应该干涉人们在网上的言行。今年，他在自己的Telegram频道上写道：Telegram has benefited people in authoritarian countries who need ways to freely communicate, but the app has also contributed to real-world harm. Hateful discourse that spread on the platform has played a role in recent riots in Britain and arson at migrant housing centers in Ireland.Telegram让专制国家中需要自由交流方式的人们受益匪浅，但这款应用也造成了现实世界中的伤害。在这个平台上传播的仇恨言论，在最近英国的骚乱和爱尔兰移民公屋的纵火事件中发挥了作用。A disparate collective on Telegram known as Terrorgram, where neo-fascists share messages and videos encouraging violence, has been linked to attacks, including a shooting in 2022 at an L.G.B.T.Q. bar in Slovakia.一个名为Terrorgram的群组（与Telegram公司无关）与一些袭击事件有关联，其中包括2022年在斯洛伐克一家LGBTQ酒吧发生的枪击事件，新法西斯分子在该群组中分享了怂恿暴力的信息和视频。Even as Telegram approaches one billion users, it has prided itself on behaving differently from its tech peers. The company, based in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, operates like a start-up, with about 60 full-time employees. It has hired just a few hundred contractors to work as moderators, and it steadfastly ignores most requests for assistance from law enforcement agencies.尽管用户已接近10亿，但Telegram仍为自己与其他同级别科技公司的不同之处感到自豪。该公司总部位于阿拉伯联合酋长国的迪拜，运营方式就像一家初创企业，拥有大约60名全职员工。它只雇佣了几百名承包商来担任内容管理者，而且坚决无视执法机构的大多数协助请求。An email inbox used for inquiries from government agencies is rarely checked, former employees said. When a House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Capitol Hill sought information from 15 internet platforms, only Telegram did not respond.前雇员说，用于接收政府机构询问的电子邮箱很少得到查阅。当调查2021年1月6日国会山袭击事件的众议院委员会要求15个互联网平台提供信息时，只有Telegram没有回应。In contrast, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok have entire divisions dedicated to complying with law enforcement requests and thousands of moderators scouring their services for illicit and harmful material.相比之下，Instagram、YouTube和TikTok都有专门的部门来满足执法部门的要求，还有成千上万的管理员在他们的服务中搜索非法和有害的内容。Only Apple and Google, which can expel Telegram from their app stores, have successfully pushed the platform to take down and restrict the spread of harmful material, said analysts, government officials and tech executives. Governments have sometimes turned to the tech giants for help getting Telegram to act.分析人士、政府官员和科技公司高管表示，只有苹果和谷歌能够将Telegram从其应用商店中删除，并成功推动该平台删除和限制有害信息的传播。政府有时会向科技巨头寻求帮助，让Telegram采取行动。Hours after The Times sent Telegram a detailed list of questions, Mr. Durov on Thursday posted his first comments to his 12 million-plus followers since his arrest. He said claims that Telegram was “some sort of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue” and that the company removed “millions of harmful posts and channels everyday.”在时报向Telegram发送了一份详细的问题清单数小时后，杜罗夫于周四向他的1200多万粉丝发表了自被捕以来的首次评论。他说，声称Telegram是“某种无政府主义天堂的说法绝对是不真实的”，公司“每天删除数百万条有害帖子和频道”。He attributed the volume of illicit and harmful content to Telegram’s “growing pains,” adding that “that’s why I made it my personal goal to ensure that we significantly improve things in this regard.”他将大量非法和有害内容归因于Telegram的“成长烦恼”，并说，“这就是为什么我把确保我们在这方面取得重大进展作为个人目标。”In a statement to The Times, Telegram said that “99.999 percent of our users” were lawful and that while there was “plenty of work to do,” the platform was making improvements to its features and moderation.Telegram在给时报的声明中表示，“99.999%的用户”都是合法的，虽然“还有很多工作要做”，但该平台正在改进其功能和审核。A Marketplace for Crime犯罪市场In December 2022, Hayden Espinosa began serving a 33-month sentence in federal prison in Louisiana for buying and selling illegal firearms and weapon parts he made with 3-D printers. That did not stop his business.2022年12月，海登·埃斯皮诺萨开始在路易斯安那州的联邦监狱服刑33个月，罪名是非法买卖用3D打印机制造的枪支和武器部件。但这并没有断了他的生意。Using cellphones that had been smuggled into prison, Mr. Espinosa continued his illicit trade on a Telegram channel, which was named after 3-D printing and the Second Amendment right to bear arms, according to an indictment in June by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg Jr.根据曼哈顿地区检察官小阿尔文·L·布拉格6月的一份起诉书，埃斯皮诺萨使用走私进监狱的手机，继续在Telegram频道上进行非法交易。该频道以3D打印和美国宪法第二修正案允许携带武器的权利命名。One post in the channel’s “shop” offered a menu of prices for weapon parts, including ammunition clips and devices called auto sears, which empty a magazine with a single pull of the trigger. “DM for International Orders,” the post said.在该频道的“商店”中，一个帖子列出了武器部件的价格菜单，包括弹夹条和一种叫做“自动压杆”的装置，只需扣住扳机就能一次性将弹匣内的子弹全部射出。“私信联系国际订单”帖子上写道。Telegram combines the anonymity of the dark web with the ease-of-use of an online marketplace. It is easy to search and find channels selling guns, illicit narcotics, prescription drugs and fraudulent A.T.M. cards, called clone cards. Alongside photos and videos of available merchandise, dealers leave information on how to message them directly.Telegram结合了暗网的匿名性和在线市场的易用性。很容易搜索并找到销售枪支、非法麻醉品、处方药和被称为克隆卡的伪造ATM卡的渠道。除了现有商品的照片和视频，经销商还会留下如何直接给他们留言的信息。Often they act like salesmen, celebrating successful deliveries and touting discounted prices.他们经常扮演推销员的角色，庆祝交货成功，并推销折扣价格。One reason Telegram has become a haven for such activity stems from its unique features, including “channels” and “supergroups,” which rivals like WhatsApp were slower to add.Telegram之所以成为此类活动的天堂，原因之一在于其独特的功能，包括“频道”和“超级群组”，而WhatsApp等竞争对手在增加这些功能方面进展较慢。Telegram began as a standard text messaging service similar to iMessage or WhatsApp, before it began evolving in 2014 by adding broadcasting features. These “channels” are now one of the platform’s best-known tools for sharing text, images, links and videos by news organizations, world leaders and government agencies.Telegram最初是一款类似于iMessage或WhatsApp的标准短信服务，直到2014年才开始发展，增加了广播功能。这些“频道”现在是该平台最著名的工具之一，被新闻机构、世界领导人和政府机构用于分享文字、图像、链接和视频。Telegram then introduced “supergroups,” which harked back to an era of unruly AOL chat rooms. These groups attracted new users but also presented risks.Telegram随后推出了“超级群组”，让人回想起无法无天的AOL聊天室时代。这些群组吸引了新用户，但也带来了风险。While WhatsApp kept group chat sizes in the hundreds and limited link sharing to blunt the spread of disinformation, Telegram did the opposite and steadily lifted the cap on group sizes. By 2019, a group administrator could run city-size chat groups with as many as 200,000 users.WhatsApp将群聊人数控制在数百人，并限制链接分享，以遏制虚假信息的传播，而Telegram却反其道而行，逐步提高了群聊人数的上限。到2019年，群组管理员可以管理拥有多达20万用户的城市人口规模的聊天群组。Initially, this attracted new users interested in cryptocurrencies. In the crypto world, Telegram became a critical tool for talking about new digital coins and cultivating communities dedicated to, and often heavily invested in, particular currencies.最初，这吸引了对加密货币感兴趣的新用户。在加密货币领域，Telegram成为讨论新的数字货币和培养专注于特定货币的社区的重要工具，这些社区往往对特定货币投入巨资。These tools also attracted a less savory group of users, including extremists, disinformation peddlers and sellers of illicit goods.这些工具还吸引了一群不太讨人喜欢的用户，包括极端分子、虚假信息贩子和非法商品卖家。“I don’t want to paint with a broad brush,” said Mr. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, “but I think the combination of a number of things — the encryption, the ability to reach large numbers of people, the ability to set up subgroups and their posture toward law enforcement — creates an environment in which it’s not surprising that criminal activity is occurring.”“我不想一概而论，”曼哈顿地区检察官布拉格说，“但我认为，加密技术、接触大量人群的能力、建立子群的能力以及他们对执法部门的姿态，这些因素的结合创造了一种环境，在这种环境中发生犯罪活动不足为奇。”Nor has the platform dedicated significant resources to weed this activity out. As Telegram ballooned, its staff barely grew. Today, it has contractors and artificial intelligence tools to proactively monitor the public parts of Telegram, which does not include many groups or individual chats.该平台也没有投入大量资源来清除这种活动。随着Telegram的膨胀，它的员工几乎没有增长。今天，它有承包商和人工智能工具来主动监控Telegram的公开部分，但不包括许多群组或个人聊天。The company said it had a moderation process, which includes constantly reviewing content, fielding user complaints and publishing daily reports on child sexual abuse materials.该公司表示，它有一个审核程序，包括不断审查内容，处理用户投诉，以及发布有关儿童性虐待材料的每日报告。Even so, The Times found at least 50 channels openly selling contraband, including guns, drugs and fraudulent debit cards. One channel that evoked the Wild West with its name called successful deliveries “touchdowns,” a popular slang in such groups.即便如此，时报还是发现至少有50个频道公开出售违禁品，包括枪支、毒品和欺诈性借记卡。其中一个频道的名字让人想到荒蛮西部，它把成功的送货称为“达阵”，这是这类团体中流行的俚语。Telegram’s features — coupled with its refusal to cooperate with the police — have stymied criminal investigations, increasingly frustrating the authorities. The company can gain access to messages unless users select a secret chat option with end-to-end encryption, according to two former employees. On at least two occasions, the company has retrieved the messages of former employees, one person said.Telegram的功能——再加上它拒绝与警方合作——阻碍了刑事调查，令当局愈发不满。据两名前雇员透露，除非用户选择端到端加密的秘密聊天选项，否则该公司可以访问信息。一位知情人士说，至少有两次，该公司取得了前员工的信息。But the company, which denied that employees had access to user data, has refused to share information with governments. France charged Mr. Durov with complicity in trafficking child sexual imagery, among other crimes, because of what the chief prosecutor called “an almost total lack of response” to requests for assistance.但公司否认员工有权访问用户数据，并拒绝与政府分享信息。法国指控杜罗夫参与贩卖儿童色情图像等罪行，原因是首席检察官称，他对当局的协助请求“几乎完全没有回应”。Svenja Meininghaus, a state prosecutor focused on illegal hate speech in Germany, said other major social media platforms had developed practices for working with law enforcement. But “we don’t get any cooperation from Telegram at all,” she said, adding, “I can’t recall one case.”专注于非法仇恨言论的德国州检察官斯文嘉·迈宁豪斯表示，其他主要社交媒体平台已经制定了与执法部门合作的方法。但“我们根本没有得到Telegram的任何合作，”她说，并补充说，“我想不起有任何案例。”Telegram said it was “now working hard to make sure we can process legitimate requests from democratic countries while still defending the rights of our users elsewhere.”Telegram表示，它“正在努力确保我们能够处理来自民主国家的合法请求，同时还能捍卫其他地方用户的权利。”Mr. Espinosa’s gun market on Telegram might never have been uncovered except that one of its members was Payton Gendron, who massacred 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo in 2022.如果不是群组成员佩顿·根德隆于2022年在布法罗的一家超市杀害了10人，埃斯皮诺萨在Telegram上的枪支交易市场可能永远不会被发现。Investigators scouring his life online for motives for the shooting discovered the channel, which also featured racist and extremist views he had shared.调查人员在他的网络生活中寻找枪击动机，结果发现了这个频道，其中还有他分享的种族主义和极端主义观点。Having stumbled across the channel’s illicit trade in components of untraceable “ghost guns,” an undercover police officer in New York City reached out to Mr. Espinosa, 24, and bought a handgun, an assault rifle and two silencers from him in August 2023, according to the indictment. A lawyer for Mr. Espinosa with the Legal Aid Society could not be reached for comment.起诉书称，纽约市一名卧底警察偶然发现该频道存在非法交易无法追踪的“鬼枪”部件的行为，于是联系了24岁的埃斯皮诺萨，并于2023年8月从他那里购买了一把手枪、一支突击步枪和两个消音器。记者无法联系到法律援助协会为埃斯皮诺萨提供服务的律师置评。Live on Telegram, a Terrorist Attack一场在Telegram上直播的恐怖袭击When Hamas attacked Israel on the morning of Oct. 7, it announced the assault on Telegram.10月7日上午袭击以色列时，哈马斯在Telegram上宣布了这次行动。Within two and a half hours of the first incursions, Hamas began posting grisly videos of the carnage. In the first 72 hours of the war, channels affiliated with the group posted nearly 700 times, receiving over 54 million views, according to The Times’s analysis.在第一次入侵的两个半小时内，哈马斯开始发布可怕的屠杀视频。根据《纽约时报》的分析，在战争开始的头72小时里，隶属于该组织的频道发布了近700个帖子，浏览量超过5400万次。Telegram became so useful to Hamas that the group turned to the platform more than it did an official Hamas app, the Al-Qassam Brigades Android app, which it had built to communicate with supporters. Content posted to both platforms consistently saw 100 times more reach on Telegram, The Times found.Telegram对哈马斯来说非常有用，以至于该组织更倾向于使用这个平台，而不是哈马斯的官方应用程序——卡桑旅(Al-Qassam Brigades)安卓应用程序，它是哈马斯为与支持者沟通而开发的。时报发现，对比同时在这两个平台上发布的内容，Telegram上的点击率一直是卡桑旅应用的100倍。Hamas capitalized on other Telegram features. After Oct. 7, members of its groups and other supporters easily downloaded videos of the violence and posted them to other platforms with little interference. The effect was a surge of grisly clips across the internet.哈马斯还利用了Telegram的其他功能。10月7日之后，该组织的成员和其他支持者轻松下载了暴力视频，并在几乎没有干扰的情况下将其发布到其他平台。其结果是可怕的视频片段在互联网上激增。After Apple and Google demanded some moderation, Telegram relented — but only a little. In late October, the company restricted access to some Hamas-related content on copies of its app distributed through the official Apple and Google app stores. It also sent some users instructions on how to download another version of the app that did not have the content removed.在苹果和谷歌要求适度调整后，Telegram让步了——但只是稍微让步。10月下旬，该公司限制了通过苹果和谷歌官方应用商店发布的应用副本访问一些与哈马斯有关的内容。该公司还向一些用户发送了如何下载未删除内容的另一版本应用的说明。“If you wish to continue reading those channels, you can do so using the direct version of Telegram for Android which has the minimum possible restrictions,” said a message sent from an official Telegram account that was reviewed by The Times. It included a link to the unfiltered version of the app.“如果你想继续阅读这些频道，可以使用Android版Telegram的直接版本，该版本尽可能减少了限制，”时报看过的一个Telegram官方账户发出的消息说，其中包含了一个链接，指向未过滤版本的应用。In contrast, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube blocked accounts linked to Hamas, as well as posts that were overtly sympathetic to its cause.相比之下，Facebook、Instagram、TikTok和YouTube封锁了与哈马斯有关的账户及公开同情哈马斯的帖子。In an Oct. 13 post, Mr. Durov defended the availability of Hamas-related content. In one instance, he noted, Hamas had used Telegram to alert Israelis of a coming attack.在10月13日的一篇文章中，杜罗夫为哈马斯相关内容的可用性进行了辩护。他指出，有一次，哈马斯曾使用Telegram向以色列人发出即将发生袭击的警报。This month, Hamas used Telegram to release videos of hostages in Gaza who were later killed. One of the videos, which was viewed more than 100,000 times, included English, Arabic and Hebrew subtitles to maximize its audience.本月，哈马斯利用Telegram发布了加沙人质的视频，这些人质后来被杀害。其中一个视频的浏览量超过了10万次，其中包括英语、阿拉伯语和希伯来语字幕，以便最大限度地扩大受众范围。Basem Naim, a Hamas spokesman, declined to comment. After being contacted by The Times, Telegram blocked access to several Hamas channels on Friday.哈马斯发言人巴塞姆·纳伊姆拒绝置评。在与时报联系后，Telegram于周五屏蔽了几个哈马斯频道。White Nationalists Unite联合起来的白人民族主义者Mr. Durov, who was born in 1984 in the Soviet Union, became known as Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg after he founded VKontakte, a social network similar to Facebook, in 2006.杜罗夫于1984年出生于苏联，在2006年创立了类似Facebook的社交网络VKontakte，因此被称为俄罗斯的马克·扎克伯格。As VKontakte took off, Mr. Durov said the Kremlin pressured him to remove content and report users, wary of the network’s power to organize anti-government sentiment. That inspired him to start Telegram as a method of keeping communications safe from the Kremlin’s prying eyes. The app was released in 2013.杜罗夫说，随着VKontakte的发展，克里姆林宫向他施压，要求他删除内容并举报用户，担心该网络有能力组织反政府情绪。这促使他创办了Telegram，以确保通信安全，避免克里姆林宫的窥视。这款应用于2013年发布。In 2014, Mr. Durov left Russia. Since then he has lived itinerantly, working from Berlin, San Francisco, London and elsewhere before landing in Dubai. Worth an estimated $9 billion, he has become a sort of free speech folk hero.2014年，杜罗夫离开了俄罗斯，此后辗转各地，在柏林、旧金山、伦敦和其他地方工作，最后抵达迪拜。拥有90亿美元身家的他已经成为言论自由的民间英雄。So on Aug. 24, as news of Mr. Durov’s arrest in France ricocheted around the world, the events were debated by a group nearly 5,000 miles away in Montana.因此，8月24日，当杜罗夫在法国被捕的消息传遍世界时，在近8000公里外的蒙大拿州，一群人开始讨论这些事件。They were members of a local Telegram channel for White Lives Matter, a disparate white nationalist group that adopted the name from the movement formed in 2013 to protest police killings of Black people.他们是当地Telegram频道“白人的命也是命”的成员。该频道是一个由各路人等组成的白人民族主义组织，其名称源自2013年那场抗议警察杀害黑人的运动的名称。The white nationalist group is inextricably linked to Telegram for communication, recruitment and coordination. On the platform, there are nearly 50 chapters of the movement around the world, in places like Florida, Alabama, New York, Italy, Russia, Germany and the Czech Republic. They share anti-immigration views and commentary and organize protests or other actions, like unfurling racist banners in public spaces, The Times found.这个白人民族主义组织的沟通、招募和协调工作与Telegram有着千丝万缕的联系。在这个平台上，该运动在世界各地有近50个分会，分布在佛罗里达州、阿拉巴马州、纽约、意大利、俄罗斯、德国和捷克共和国等地。时报发现，他们分享反移民的观点和评论，组织抗议活动或其他行动，比如在公共场所展示种族主义横幅。“Join our team, and lets make something good happen for a change!” read a recent post in the Montana channel.“加入我们的团队，让我们做出一些好的改变！”蒙大拿频道最近的一条帖子写道。The chapters, which typically have a few hundred members, have been linked to violence. One Ohio member firebombed a church that hosted a drag event in Alliance, Ohio, last year, according to court documents.这些通常有几百名成员的分会涉及暴力活动。法庭文件显示，去年，一名俄亥俄州成员在俄亥俄州阿莱恩斯一家举办变装活动的教堂投掷燃烧弹。The movement takes advantage of Telegram’s features. Known as a hub and spoke model, an international channel with more than 21,000 members amplifies broader messages while smaller local groups focus on organizing and recruiting.该行动充分利用了Telegram的功能。在被称为“中心辐射”的模式下，一个国际频道拥有21000多名成员，可以放大更广泛的信息，而较小的地方团体则专注于组织和招募。Tinier private channels are where activities, sometimes illegal, are planned, experts in extremist movements said. The result was a feedback loop where local actions, such as a vandalism campaign, were amplified globally, which in turn inspired more action elsewhere.研究极端主义运动的专家说，更小的私人频道是策划活动的地方，有时是非法活动。这就形成了一个反馈循环，当地的行动（如破坏活动），被扩大到全球，进而激发了其他地方的更多行动。Other far-right nationalist groups have also sprouted on Telegram. In a channel for the American far-right extremist group Proud Boys, acts of political intimidation were planned, including demonstrations outside election centers in 2022 and a campaign this year to steal and damage rainbow L.G.B.T.Q. flags during Pride Month. In Ireland, anti-immigration activists use Telegram to share the locations of immigration centers, some of which were later targeted by arsonists.其他极右翼民族主义团体也在Telegram上萌芽。美国极右翼极端组织“骄傲男孩”的一个频道策划了政治恐吓行动，包括2022年在选举中心外举行示威，以及今年在“骄傲月”期间偷窃和破坏LGBTQ彩虹旗的活动。在爱尔兰，反移民活动人士使用Telegram分享移民中心的位置，其中一些移民中心后来成为纵火犯的目标。Some extremist groups have grown more cautious as scrutiny of Telegram has intensified. Messages pinned to local channels instruct new members on how to stay anonymous.随着对Telegram的审查力度加大，一些极端组织变得更加谨慎。置顶在本地频道上的信息指导新成员如何保持匿名。“Remember: This is a public channel, and not everyone who views it is friendly to people who support WLM,” read a post on one channel. “Write and converse accordingly.”“记住：这是一个公共频道，并不是所有观看它的人都对支持‘白人的命也是命’的人友好，”一个频道上的帖子写道。“发言和聊天需考虑到这一点。”A new member to one chat was instructed by a group administrator to “please setup a non personal profile picture.” To be invited into more private chats, new recruits must first interact with an automated bot, which connects them with a local chapter after vetting their intentions and background.群组管理员指示新成员“请设置非个人资料图片”。要受邀参加更多私人聊天，新成员必须首先与一个自动机器人互动，该机器人在审查他们的意图和背景后，会帮他们与当地分会取得联系。“We are here simply because we like what Telegram stands for, uncensored freedom of speech,” an administrator of the channel wrote in response to questions. “Condemning ‘It’s okay to be white’ as hate speech is why we are here and will continue to speak and fight against the anti-white narrative.”“我们来这里只是因为我们喜欢Telegram所代表的东西，也就是不受审查的言论自由，”该频道的一名管理员在回答问题时写道。“我们来到这里，是因为‘白皮肤不是罪’被谴责是仇恨言论，我们将继续发声，反对那些反白人的言论。”Ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November, security researchers are monitoring Telegram for threats of violence. In many public channels, activists are already making claims of voter fraud, with calls to be prepared to act, said Arie Perliger, a criminology professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, whose research is partly funded by the National Institute of Justice, a research agency of the Department of Justice.在11月美国总统大选之前，安全研究人员正在监控Telegram上的暴力威胁。马萨诸塞州大学洛厄尔分校的犯罪学教授阿里·佩里格说，活动人士已经在许多公共渠道上声称存在选民舞弊，并呼吁做好采取行动的准备。佩里格的研究得到了美国司法部下属研究机构国家司法研究所的部分资助。If former President Donald J. Trump loses in November, Mr. Perliger said, “we need to understand Telegram will probably be a substantial infrastructure for extremists who want to do something about it.”佩里格说，如果前总统特朗普在11月的大选中败选，“我们需要明白，对于那些想为此做点什么的极端分子来说，Telegram可能会成为一个重要的基础设施。”Can Telegram Be Brought to Heel?Telegram能被逼就范吗？Several times a year, employees at Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters send notes to Telegram demanding it remove material that has been flagged as illegal or otherwise harmful.每年，苹果硅谷总部的员工都会多次给Telegram发通知，要求其删除被标记为非法或有害的内容。Apple explains that under its guidelines, the app must have policies to filter out objectionable content and block abusive users, said three people with knowledge of the exchanges who declined to be identified discussing private talks.苹果解释说，根据其规范要求，该应用必须有过滤不良内容和阻止滥用用户的政策，因涉私人谈话，三位知情人士拒绝透露姓名。Telegram often voices its objections, they said, but it almost always bends to Apple’s demands. Where governments have failed to get the app to act — or even respond — Apple and Google have had some success by using the threat of kicking the service out of their app stores.他们说，Telegram经常表示反对，但它几乎总是屈从于苹果的要求。在政府未能让该应用采取行动甚至做出回应的情况下，苹果和谷歌通过威胁将这款服务踢出它们的应用商店，取得了一些成功。With Telegram, the companies are trying to balance the app’s potential harms against its beneficial role as a private communications tool and a critical piece of digital infrastructure in countries like Ukraine and Russia. They must also consider differing rules about what is classified as illegal speech around the world.对于Telegram，这些公司正试图平衡这款应用的潜在危害，以及它作为私人通信工具和乌克兰和俄罗斯等国数字基础设施的重要组成部分所发挥的有益作用。他们还必须考虑世界各地对不法言论的不同规定。In practice, the most effective way to get Telegram to act is a sort of whisper-down-the-lane approach in which users, advocacy groups, news coverage and sometimes governments draw Apple’s and Google’s attention to the app’s harmful and illegal content. The tech giants in turn notify Telegram to respond.在实践中，让Telegram采取行动的最有效方法是一种“低声传话”的方式，即用户、倡导团体、新闻报道，有时还有政府，提请苹果和谷歌注意该应用的有害和非法内容。这些科技巨头转过头来通知Telegram做出回应。In addition to Apple’s regular messages to address such content, Google sends requests to Telegram almost weekly, four people with knowledge of the interactions said. Telegram responds quickly when alerted to clearly illegal material like child sexual abuse content, they said, but it is more resistant to demands to address speech-related content that is less clearly unlawful.四位知情人士说，除了苹果公司定期发出处理此类内容的信息外，谷歌几乎每周都会向Telegram发送请求。他们说，当发现明显非法的内容，比如儿童性虐待内容时，Telegram会迅速做出反应，但对于处理与言论有关、不那么明显非法的内容的要求，它会比较抵制。Telegram said it abided by Apple’s and Google’s moderation rules. Google and Apple declined to comment on Telegram and said their rules were detailed in developerguidelines.Telegram表示，它遵守了苹果和谷歌的审核规则。谷歌和苹果拒绝对Telegram发表评论，并表示它们的规定在开发者指南中有详细说明。Mr. Durov has grown increasingly antagonistic toward the tech giants. He has called Apple a “trillion-dollar monopoly” and chided the company in April for blocking Telegram on its China app store, writing that “prioritizing profits over freedom for users is not a good long-term strategy.”杜罗夫对科技巨头的敌意越来越大。他称苹果是一个“价值数万亿美元的垄断企业”，并在今年4月指责苹果在其中国应用商店屏蔽Telegram，他写道，“将利润置于用户自由之上并不是一个好的长期战略。”“The largest pressure toward Telegram is not coming from governments, it’s coming from Apple and Google,” Mr. Durov said in an interview this year with Tucker Carlson.“对Telegram最大的压力不是来自政府，而是来自苹果和谷歌，”杜罗夫今年接受塔克·卡尔森采访时说。Methodology 调查方法 The Times analyzed 3,242,664 Telegram messages from 16,220 channels. Prose Intelligence, a company that analyzes Telegram data, provided an initial list of channels. Using those, The Times wrote code to download messages and expanded the network using hashtags, common phrases and forwarded messages.时报分析了来自16220个频道的3242664条Telegram信息。Prose Intelligence 是一家分析Telegram数据的公司，提供了最初的频道列表。利用这些信息，时报编写了下载信息的代码，并使用标签、常用短语和转发信息扩展了该网络。
