Gaza City

Hamas, the militant outfit which has been engaging in a bloody war with Israel, has been barred from most of the social media platforms. However, there has been a sudden surge in its following on the popular messaging app Telegram since it launched the sudden and brutal October 7 terror attack on Israel.

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One of the accounts which belongs to the armed wing of the Hamas movement, al-Qassam Brigades, saw its following triple, and a ten-fold increase was seen in the number of views garnered over videos and other content shared by the account.  

In the United States, Hamas has been designated as a foreign terror organisation, and as per the new internet laws introduced in the European Union, social media platforms can be charged penalties for sharing terroristic content. 

The accounts of Hamas have been prohibited on Meta and Google, however, Telegram - a social media company founded by a Russian entrepreneur who is now based in Dubai - took the decision to permit the group to continue the use of its service. 

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X, which was formerly known as Twitter, said that it has placed a ban on Hamas and has deleted “hundreds” of “Hamas-affiliated accounts.” However, last week, the European Union stated that it has started an investigation into the company regarding illegal content and disinformation being spread about the Israel-Hamas war on its platform. 

Also read: Revisiting Israel-Palestine historical conflict amid new escalation by Hamas

Proliferating audience of Hamas 

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The Telegram channel for the military wing of Hamas, al-Qassam Brigades, garnered around 200,000 followers at the time of the attack. The following of the channel has since tripled, as per an analysis by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab.

Before the attack was launched, the channel's posts were viewed on average about 25,000 times. Now, the posts are getting viewed more than 300,000 times, which is a 10-fold increase in its viewership. 

Another channel, which posts video messages from a spokesperson of Hamas, had around 166,000 followers before October 7 and now its followers have increased to more than 414,000, according to Memetica, a threat analysis company.

WATCH | Israel-Hamas war: Rafah border crossing shut | What does Egypt fear?

Since Telegram has very lenient content moderation rules, it has become popular among far-right groups in the United States and among extremist groups internationally, stated Brian Fishman, who earlier headed a team at Meta which tackled terrorist and other dangerous organisations. 

The popularity of Telegram in the US started to increase after the US Capitol attack on January 6 when the platform started being used by prominent peddlers of election conspiracy theories after they were kicked from social media sites like Twitter (now X) and Facebook. Globally, around 800 million people have been using Telegram, said its founder. 

Disclaimer: WION takes utmost care to accurately and responsibly report ongoing developments on the Israel-Palestine conflict after the Hamas attacks. However, we cannot independently verify the authenticity of all statements, photos and videos.

(With inputs from agencies)

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