Australia is taking Telegram to court over its alleged failure to remove “pro-terrorism” material, including video of the Christchurch shootings, the country’s eSafety commissioner has said.

Julie Inman-Grant, who last year led Australia’s first global ban on social media for under-16s, said the platform faced a fine of up to A$54.6m (£28m, US$38m) for failing to meet its safety obligations under the Online Safety Act.

The platform had left content “linked to some of the most egregious acts of extremist violence in recent history” online long after it had been notified, it alleged.

“This should worry us all,” he said, adding that “no platform is above the law.”

The announcement comes a day after Russia accused Telegram founder Pavel Durov of facilitating terrorism, based on allegations that the Ukrainian secret services had used the messaging app for recruitment.

Durov was also arrested and placed under formal investigation in France in 2024 for his alleged failure to properly moderate the app to reduce crime. Months later he was allowed to return home, while the investigation continues.

Inman-Grant said her agency had begun investigating what Telegram was doing to combat terrorist and extremist material in March 2024, and had endured “five very difficult months of lack of response.”

Although the platform began to appeal later, he said it had retained a “permissive environment” for hosting extremist content that was “very easy to find.”

“This only serves to desensitize, normalize and sometimes radicalize” users, he said. He also alleged that the platform was “sometimes used to plan attacks.”

A Telegram spokesperson said the platform’s “extensive” counterterrorism efforts were “well documented,” adding: “We reject these allegations and will challenge them in court.”

Extremist content allegedly accessible on Telegram included videos from the Christchurch mosque in 2019 and the Buffalo shooting in New York in May 2022, as well as videos of terrorist executions, according to Inman-Grant.

With the “painful aftermath” of the attack that targeted a Jewish holiday in Bondi in December fresh in the minds of Australians, “it is more important than ever that digital platforms fulfill their obligations to protect the community,” he said.

Inman-Grant noted that Australia does not issue licenses for platforms like Telegram, but said “we could go to federal court and ask for the service to be suspended.”

“We have never used those powers,” he said. “We’ll see how this all plays out and whether that type of action is justified.”

The eSafety regulator also fined Telegram A$1 million in February 2025 for failing to respond in time to questions about how it was tackling child abuse and extremist material on the platform.