The joint efforts of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology (Etidal) and Telegram in 2022 led to the removal of over 15 million extremist posts and the closure of about 7,000 extremist channels.
Etidal said during the Q4 of 2022, from September to December, it succeeded in monitoring and removing 8,494,035 extremist posts by three terrorist organizations, al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which were published through 3,616 channels.
ISIS extremism topped the removed content with 4,172,215 posts published on 2,654 channels, followed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham with 3,696,483 posts on 703 channels, while al-Qaeda made 625,337 posts through 259 channels.
With that, the number of extremist content and channels removed and closed during 2022 reached 15,021,951 and 6,824 respectively.
Moreover, the organizations removed 7,645,650 extremist posts and closed 1,676 Hayat Tahrir al-Sham channels, 5,458,027 ISIS content and 4,359 channels and 1,918,274 al-Qaeda content and 789 outlets.
Etidal and Telegram continue their joint efforts by cooperating and coordinating to remove extremist content published in Arabic, including media files in various formats, videos, and recordings, by collaborating to protect the platform's users from its risks and attempts to exploit the platform in circulating such content.
In a previous interview, Secretary General of Etidal Mansour al-Shammari welcomed the cooperation, stressing the commitment of Etidal to support Telegram in combating terrorism and violent extremism on its platform.
"We seek cooperation and partnership systematically, accurately, and professionally, using the Center's ideological, media, and digital capabilities to achieve the desired noble goals," said Shammari.
He asserted that Etidal would measure the success of the collaboration and hope to establish such partnership as a model for other technology platforms to follow.
A Telegram representative described the partnering with Etidal was productive and valuable.
"We support free speech and peaceful protest, but terrorism and propaganda of violence have no place on Telegram. We are constantly improving our internal procedures and moderation tools to ensure that our platform stays free of abuse," they said.
