Apple is being sued by the Coalition for a safer web because they did not remove access to Telegram while Parler was still blocked, and also claims that it is being used by hate groups and extremists to attack the Capitol.
The lawsuit from Ambassador Marc Ginsberg and the Coalition for a Safer Web was filed Sunday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing Apple of making Telegram available in the App Store. This “despite Apple’s knowledge that Telegram is used to intimidate, threaten and coerce members of the public.”
The coalition is described as a ‘non-partisan, non-profit advocacy organization’ to enforce the removal of extremist and terrorist content from social media platforms, and Apple does not assert its own app content policies and guidelines regarding until Telegram does not follow. . In doing so, Apple enables more malicious users to continue their activities.
The lawsuit comes at the end of a week where Apple, Google, Amazon and others sever ties with Parler because they did not manage the content in the app generated by users. The app is allegedly used to plan and coordinate illegal activities in Washington DC, including the storm of the U.S. Capitol.
The lawsuit actually puts pressure on Apple to scrutinize Telegram with the aim of deploying the encrypted messaging app because they allegedly performed similar activities.
According to a June 2020 CSW press release quoted by the lawsuit, Telegram is being used as a “communication channel for the Russian government and affiliated neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups, sowing misinformation and racial divisions in the United States and in Europe. ”
Ginsberg also wrote to Apple CEO Tim Cook on behalf of the CSW in July, requesting that Telegram be temporarily demoted due to its role in “inciting extremist violence”.
There is also the accusation that “anti-black and anti-Semitic groups used Telegram openly with little or no content moderation by the management of Telegram.” Despite CSW’s warnings and media reports about the app, Apple “took no action against Telegram comparable to the action it took against Parler to force Telegram to improve its content moderation policy.”
Telegram is also used to ‘coordinate and incite extreme violence’ before the inauguration of Pres. Joe Biden. “Some users have called on followers to abandon plans for a second protest in Washington in favor of surprise attacks nationwide,” it is alleged.
Mention is also made of how Ginsberg had emotional distress and anxiety due to the misinformation and incitement to violence against Jews. Since Ginsberg is both Jewish and in the public eye, he is forced to ‘live in a fear that religiously motivated violence will be committed against him’, which makes him fear for his life and the lives of his family.
The case also cites an injustice in the way Apple enforces its rules, citing the removal of Parler and the “Fortnite” from Epic Games for violating the guidelines. Meanwhile, it is said that the use of Telegram in various ways violates the App Store guidelines since the launch of the app in 2013.
In the case of Telegram developers, the CSW claims that they “took no significant action to curb these blatant, systematic and ongoing violations of Telegram users’ accusations of the accused.”
The case demands a jury trial and asks the court to provide compensation to each plaintiff, an order granted to ban Telegram in the App Store until it complies with Apple’s guidelines and legal costs.
Telegram has a striking history with Apple regarding its users and content offered on the service, with Apple gaining access in 2018 due to the presence of child pornography. In October, Apple demanded the removal of posts related to protests in Belarus.
In April 2018, Russian telecommunications regulator Roskomnadzor ordered Apple to halt downloading Telegram, in part because app developers are refusing to hand over coding keys to the government, as required by Russian law. While the political ban prevented the app from updating for some time, Apple approved app updates to go through in June of the same year.