Saudi Arabia’s Etidal, Telegram remove 18 million extremist content items.

Joint efforts between the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology, also known as Etidal, and Telegram in combating extremist content led to the removal of 18 million items of extremist content and the closure of 660 extremist channels during the second quarter of 2024.

A press release said that the joint teams continued to monitor and combat the propaganda activity of extremist content for three terrorist organizations: Daesh, Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham and Al-Qaeda.

About 14 million items of extremist content from Daesh were removed, and 305 channels were closed.

As for Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham, 3 million extremist content were removed, and 281 extremist channels were closed.

About 231,354 extremist content items were removed and 74 channels closed that had been used by Al-Qaeda to broadcast extremist messages.

More than 2 million pieces of content were removed on June 17, coinciding with the Hajj season.

In the second quarter of 2024, propaganda activity by the three terrorist organizations increased by 12.82 percent compared to Q1 2024, as seen in previous years and in line with the Hajj season.

The joint efforts, from February 2022 to June 2024, between Etidal and Telegram removed 93 million items of extremist content and closed 14,193 extremist channels.

The extremist propaganda content that was removed varied between formats such as PDFs, video clips and audio recordings.