Telegram Has a Serious Doxing Problem

The popularity of Han Nyein Oo's posts on Facebook grew to hundreds of thousands of people in early 2021, making him one of the most influential people in the country. After the country's military seized power, he became a full-blooded supporter of the junta, which has killed more than 1,500 people and arrested thousands more in bloody purges.

He moved to Telegram because he was banned from Facebook for violating its terms. There were messages of support for the military, graphic pictures of murdered civilians, and doctored pornographic images. These were posted in other channels that were run by pro-junta people.

Han Nyein Oo was moving on to direct threats. The anniversary of the coup was supposed to be marked with a silent strike and a stay at home rule. Han Nyein Oo asked his followers to send him pictures of businesses that were going to close. The images and addresses were posted to his followers. Police raided many premises. He claimed credit. He didn't reply to the question.

The start of the doxing campaign was when that happened. There's been an increase since then.

Hundreds of people have been doxed by the pro-coup figures over the past eight months. Dozens of people have been killed or arrested in the last year.

After his channel was taken down for violating Telegram's rules on pornography, he started a new one. More than 70,000 people follow it.

Telegram has a doxing problem that goes all the way to the other side of the world. WIRED spoke to activists and experts in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe who said that the platform has ignored their warnings about an epidemic of politically motivated doxing.

According to a Telegram message, the company has moderated harmful content on its platform. The public parts of the app are monitored by our moderators in order to remove content that violates our terms.

Telegram has a publicly stated philosophy that private communications should be outside the reach of governments. It's popular among people living under authoritarian regimes all over the world.