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MOSCOW, March 28 It is better not to ban Telegram, but to involve them in identifying terrorist content, Artem Metelev, head of the State Duma Committee on Youth Policy, told reporters.
The perpetrators of the terrorist attack in Crocus were recruited through the Telegram channel of the Afghan wing of the ISIS banned in Russia, Voice of Khorasan, a source familiar with the situation previously reported. According to him, the channel worked for an audience in Tajikistan, but has already been deleted. Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov earlier called on Pavel Durov to monitor Telegram more closely, since today the messenger is increasingly becoming a tool in the hands of terrorists.
«It seems to me that banning a social network, which today is number two in Russia after VKontakte, and messenger number one, well, for sure, in my opinion, will be perceived negatively by society. It is better to deal with their work, and it is better to involve them in prevention, monitoring, identification of prohibited content, including terrorist content,” Metelev told reporters.
According to him, Telegram behaves within the framework of the law, and its administration and Pavel Durov himself always respond very quickly to incidents and cooperate with law enforcement agencies, including blocking prohibited content that does not happen, for example, on foreign social networks, on Facebook** and Discord.
* Terrorist organization banned in Russia
** The activities of Meta (social networks Facebook and Instagram) are prohibited in Russia as extremist< br />