German Justice Minister Marco Bushman announced "million-dollar" fines for Telegram messenger for violating German law and reminded that the company must designate a contact person in the country and provide a mechanism to notify the social network of unlawful content.
"And our laws also apply to Telegram. According to them, Telegram should appoint a contact person in Germany and create an easily identifiable way to notify about illegal content. Since these duties are violated, we have initiated many procedures for imposing a fine," Bushman said in an interview with Bild am Sonntag.
He noted that the German authorities regularly contact the authorities of the UAE, where the messenger's headquarters are located.
"In case the next attempt to deliver an alert (about the offense) fails, the next step will be a public alert. After that, we will be able to impose a monetary fine. Our laws provide for millions of dollars in fines," Bushman added.
Bushman also addressed the topic of Telegram, responding to the newspaper's questions about the cases of threats against the authorities that have been reported on the social network in recent weeks. The threats, according to the media, have been voiced recently in the chats of covid dissidents.
Earlier, German Interior Minister Nancy Feather called for a tougher policy towards cases of hate speech in the Telegram messenger. She noted that Telegram channels, through which information can be distributed to subscribers, fall under the norms of the German law on network security, which implies the obligation to remove illegal content.
It is worth noting that the total amount of Telegram's court fines since the beginning of 2021 is more than 40 million rubles. At the same time, some of the court's decisions have not yet entered into force.
