Ukraine needs to introduce a kind of “regulatory” mechanism for Telegram, Culture Minister Alexander Tkachenko has said. The minister made the remarks in an interview with Interfax-Ukraine published on Friday.
The Ukrainian segment of the social media network has become a “community within itself,” which remains “closed” to Ukrainian society, Tkachenko asserted. The minister acknowledged the role Telegram plays in the rapid spread of information, yet warned of the risks it allegedly poses. He also lamented the network’s opacity and lack of state oversight.
“There are anonymous Telegram channels and a lot of Russian activities there. Moreover, Telegram has no feedback. Whatever is in Facebook or Google... we at least know who to contact. Who to contact in Telegram is a difficult question,” the minister said.
Tkacheno said he did not seek to outlaw Telegram, but rather to introduce certain “regulatory” mechanisms for it. But first, the government needs an opinion from unspecified experts on the matter, he suggested.
“Telegram channels conduct fundraisers and we don’t know if they pay taxes – that’s the first issue. The second again lies in the field of transparency, ownership, cooperation with society and understanding how such interactions work,” Tkachenko said.
The call to regulate Telegram comes as the Ukrainian parliament is considering a bill criminalizing the use of what are deemed to be fake social media accounts that post information considered harmful by the authorities.
The legislation was introduced last week, and envisions the criminalization of “creating, procuring, using, or selling accounts that contain deliberately false information about the user,” or the spreading of broadly defined harmful information. Should the offense be committed during wartime, an individual risks landing in jail for up to seven years, according to the proposed law.
Over the course of the current conflict with Russia, which started in February 2022, Kiev has increasingly tightened its grip on the media, internet, and politics, rolling out a series of highly restrictive laws. Last month, for instance, Ukraine introduced an automated system with the stated goal of filtering out malicious websites used by online conmen. The platform’s critics, however, alleged the true goal of the authorities was tightening their grip on the internet and warned about Kiev’s ever-worsening online censorship.