by Karina Meier, FRONTLINE, A. C. Thompson, ProPublica, and James Bandler, ProPublica, and FRONTLINE.
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This account is a part of a collaboration between Frontline and ProPublica that includes an upcoming documentary.
In late December, a 26-year-old building contractor in Sarasota County, Florida, used his phone to give a burst of foreboding website content.
Federal court documents show that Alexander Lightner planned to kill countless people while tapping away at his Samsung Galaxy. He used the language of a new type of neo-Nazis who called themselves Accelerationists. Lightner wrote that he planned to become a” saint” — the term followers use for someone who advances their racist cause through lethal acts of terror — and to set a new” Highscore”, or death toll.
Federal prosecutors allege that Lightner made threats to Telegram, the sprawling, no-holds-barred system that has become a hub for the activity. Accelerationists hope to inflate modern society and build a bright ethno-state as a result of the remains of the democracies of today. Deep in the conversation of the product’s almost 900 million users, these extremists have created a cluster of Telegram channels where they encourage followers like Lightner to assassinate political leaders, damage power stations and railways, and commit mass murder.
After firing off his reported threats on Telegram a week later, Lightner woke up from a sleep at home to his family’s yells,” Whoa, whoa, whoa.” What’s this, exactly? Are these folks here for us”?
A summary of Lightner’s interview with federal agencies shows that he threw an illegitimate homemade suppressor into a laundry basket. Next he stepped into the moonlight. In his front lawn, agents in colour and body armor pointed firearms at him. A large beating computer aimed at the front door of an armored automobile faced his family home.
Lightner was questioned by an FBI agent about the presence of national agencies at his door.
Lightner answered basically:” Telegram”, according to court documents.
Alexander Lightner’s imprisonment is captured on FBI bodycam videos at his Florida residence. ( Received by ProPublica )
Late last month, Telegram burst into the information with another arrest related to alleged criminal action on the big communication and social media platform. The man in police custody this moment was Pavel Durov, the leader of the business. After his plane touched down at an airport a few miles north of Paris, French authorities detained the Russian-born businessman.
European prosecutors issued initial charges against Durov previous Wednesday related to alleged criminal exercise on his system. According to a media release from the Paris public prosecutor, the allegations include organized scams, drug trafficking, the hands of sexual images of adolescents, as well as refusing to cooperate with authorities.
Durov’s attorney, David-Olivier Kaminski, could not be reached for comment. French news reports quoted him saying that it was” totally absurd to think that the person in charge of a social network could be implicated in criminal acts that do n’t concern him, directly or indirectly”.
Due to its extreme commitment to free speech and for rebuffing questions from both domestic and international law enforcement agencies, which have sought to collect information about alleged criminal activity on the system, the software has long been both applauded and derided.
They are “extremely unhelpful,” according to Rebecca Weiner, the deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism for the New York Police Department. Weiner, who oversees one of the world’s largest metropolitan counterterrorism units, said the platform was notable for “being a center of gravity for a wide range of extremist content” and for its “unwillingness to work with law enforcement”.
The ability to encrypt private conversations and its ease of use have contributed to Telegram’s widespread appeal. Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, used the app to acquaint himself with the Russians to thwart their invasion. Activists in Hong Kong turned to Telegram to organize demonstrations against a repressive law. Pro-democracy forces in Belarus used the platform to protest election fraud.
The Russian mercenary company Wagner Group, which has posted gruesome videos of extrajudicial killings, has also used the platform as its online home. In April, the British government targeted the Terrorgram Collective, a subset of Telegram users who promote racially and ethnically motivated terrorism to people like Lightner, making it a crime to support or belong to the group. Additionally, the service has a significant role in contributing to the anti-immigrant riots that have swept across the UK in recent years.
Telegram’s involvement in a number of recent alleged far-right sabotage and murder cases has been the subject of investigations from ProPublica and Frontline, as well as how its inaction allowed extremists to plan and even promote their crimes. Researchers have long warned that Telegram routinely allows extremists to share propaganda aimed at inciting violence, noting that the Islamic State group and al-Qaida were able to use the service for years with little interference.
According to Michael Loadenthal, a research professor at the University of Cincinnati and director of the Prosecution Project, which tracks felony cases involving political violence in the United States,” Telegram has shown that deplatforming violent and hateful content is not its priority.”
A Telegram spokesperson responded to questions from ProPublica and Frontline in messages posted on the platform before Durov’s arrest. The spokesperson said that the company bars users from calling for acts of violence, adding that moderators remove millions of pieces of harmful content from the platform every day. The spokesperson, who used the name Remi Vaughn in the messages, said,” As Telegram grows, it will continue to solve potential moderation issues with efficiency, innovation, and respect for privacy and free speech.
Pavel Durov, CEO of Telegram, in 2016 ( Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images )
Yet ProPublica and FRONTLINE found that Telegram today is the main nexus of far-right Accelerationist crime. A number of criminal schemes have been stopped by law enforcement agencies on both sides of the Atlantic, including:
- A Georgian man was detained in Europe in July for allegedly using Telegram to communicate and distribute his organization’s propaganda and is facing charges in New York. Michail Chkhikvishvili is accused of using Telegram to communicate and distribute his group’s propaganda. He is being held in Moldova pending extradition, according to Wired. ProPublica and Frontline were unable to locate him with legal counsel.
Federal prosecutors charged an Accelerationist named Andrew Takhistov with plotting to destroy a New Jersey energy facility the same month. They allege he used Telegram to incite racial violence and share a how-to guide for white supremacist terrorism that included instructions on the use of Mylar balloons and Molotov cocktails to damage power substations. Takhistov’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
Hayden Espinosa is accused of selling illegal firearms and components through a Telegram channel aimed at white supremacists and accelerationists in June, according to a statement released by Manhattan prosecutors. Espinosa allegedly used a contraband phone to sell weapons and gun parts while incarcerated in federal prison. He has entered a not-guilty plea.
A British man was recently given an eight-year prison sentence for plotting to bomb a synagogue. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, 19-year-old Mason Reynolds was” the administrator of a Telegram channel which shared far right extremist, antisemitic and racist views, as well as manuals on bomb building and how to 3D print firearms”.
- Brandon Russell, a former leader of the Atomwaffen Division, a now-defunct neo-Nazi group linked to five murders, was accused last year of planning an attack that would endanger the Baltimore power system. According to the prosecution, Russell and a co-defendant, Sarah Beth Clendaniel, organized the sabotage plot through Telegram. Clendaniel has pleaded guilty, Russell faces trial later this year. The duo’s attorneys declined to comment.
And then there is Lightner. U. S. prosecutors say in court filings that Lightner went to Telegram to discuss his plans to use a.308-caliber rifle to kill as many people as possible. He is still imprisoned while awaiting trial on federal charges of possessing an illegal silencer and making online threats. He has entered a not-guilty plea. His attorney declined to comment.
Prior to Lightner’s arrest, he claimed to be “blackout drunk” at the time of the posts and was upset about a bad breakup with an agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. ” I was severely upset and broken. And I went drinking, and then I did some stupid thing online”, he said, according to a recording of the conversation. He stated to other agents that he was only interested in having people notice and care about him rather than planning an act of violence.
Lightner informed federal agents that he began using Telegram in 2015, about two years after the platform first launched. The online service grew steadily over the next few years, with the majority of users coming from outside the U. S. Then in 2021, Telegram’s growth exploded after its rival WhatsApp announced a new privacy policy. Some users were concerned that WhatsApp would start allowing users to send their private messages to Facebook, the site’s parent. Durov claimed in a Telegram post that his platform was experiencing” the largest digital migration in human history,” claiming that 25 million new users joined in 72 hours.
That same month, in the U. S., Telegram got a bump in users when major social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter ousted former President Donald Trump and many of his most ardent supporters in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection. Right-wing extremists, including Proud Boys, militia members, and white supremacist groups like Patriot Front and the Active Clubs, are all vocal supporters of Telegram today.
Telegram’s founder, Axel Neff, claimed that the company’s core team, which includes 30 engineers and about 60 people, is too small to monitor the platform for criminal activity. ” Think about the size of Telegram. About a billion people use Telegram each month. A billion”! he said. ” Telegram is a massive, massive community. They lack the resources and staff to keep track of everything that happens there.
Neff said it would be “professional suicide” for Telegram, which has marketed itself as a bastion of unfettered speech, to make a serious effort to moderate content. ” I do n’t believe [ Durov] will ever do it,” he said.
In accordance with the company’s privacy policy,” We may disclose your IP address and phone number to the relevant authorities if a court order confirms that you are a terror suspect.” So far, this has never happened”.
In an interview with the former Fox News host earlier this year, Durov said that Telegram ignores requests for information from government agencies that are n’t “in line with our values of freedom of speech and protecting people’s private correspondence. Durov noted that Telegram refused to cooperate with the U.S. congressional committee’s investigation into the events of January 6, 2021.
Telegram stores “very limited data” on its users, the Telegram spokesperson told ProPublica and FRONTLINE. The spokesperson stated that “in the majority of cases, it is impossible for Telegram to access this data in order to provide it to the authorities.” ” Information about content on Telegram that police, governments, and users believe is illegal can be reported to the authorities. Telegram processes these reports according to its terms of service”.
According to ProPublica and Frontline, the majority of the most upsetting content is posted on violent, right-wing Accelerationists ‘ platforms, where they have attracted anti-government revolutionaries, Charles Manson admirers, and neo-Nazis.
An alliance of Accelerationists who use an ever-evolving array of Telegram channels to promote terrorism is known as the Terrorgram Collective, a group of Telegram users who have been the target of the British government’s crackdown. The group has produced at least three e-books, including a manual celebrating white supremacist mass killers that court documents show was found at Lightner’s home in Florida.
Former British counterterrorism specialist for the Metropolitan Police, David Skiffington, said it is impossible to overstate the “proliferation of extremist content” on Telegram.
Extremist-related content can also be found on other social media platforms like Steam, Discord, and Gab, according to Skiffington. ” But Telegram is by far the most widely used and accessible”.
Skiffington has spent years following the Terrorgram Collective, which is now run by DBA Insights. He claimed that the group’s influencers encourage “angry, white, lonely vulnerable people… to commit real-world acts of violence.”
It’s unclear how many people are part of the collective, though law enforcement has arrested individuals in Slovakia, Canada and the U. S. who are allegedly linked to the group.
In Florida, Lightner or a person using his name,” Death,” is spoken. — participated in at least 17 extremist Telegram channels, according to Miro Dittrich, a co-founder of the German research institute Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy, which investigates online extremism and disinformation. Three of the channels were part of the Terrorgram network.
A federal agent questioned Lightner on the day of his arrest to explain his most explosive Telegram posts. Lightner initially claimed he was unaware of the online threats. But when a federal agent read the words back to him, Lightner said he had never seriously considered an act of violence. He continued, adding that he was aware that he was “playing with fire” when he made the Telegram posts.
Reporters contributed by ProPublica’s Doris Burke, Tom Jennings, and Annie Wong‘s FRONTLINE.
