ETIDAL: Telegram removes 15 million extremist online content

The Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology, known as ETIDAL, is a center based in Riadh, Saudi Arabia. The center deals with the prevention and fight against terrorism and violent extremism. The agreement to set up the center was announced on the 21st May 2017, in a meeting between Saudi Arabian King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and US President Donald Trump.

The Telegram messaging platform, which provides an instant messaging service, removed over 15 million online content and shut down 6,824 extremist and violent channels throughout 2022. ETIDAL collaborates with the Telegram platform to prevent and counter the terrorism and violent extremism by examining online content published in Arabic. The joint activity of the two structures monitored and removed around 8.5 million items from terrorist organizations such as: Al-Qaeda, Daesh and Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham.

Digital content broadcast from September to December 2022 totaled 3,616 channels. On February 21, 2022, the two facilities agreed to work together to combat this global problem. The cooperation agreement aims to protect users of the platform from extremist content, ideological influence and attempts to exploit space in the content trade. The United Nations Counter-Terrorism Office has praised ETIDAL's commitment to fighting terrorism and violent extremism on the web.

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