Could the Government sue Telstra for what is said on the phone?

Australia's online safety watchdog is taking Telegram to court over pro-terrorist content that allegedly sat on its platform in breach of the Online Safety Act. The case is being framed as a targeted strike against extremism, and in those narrow terms it probably is. But the legal theory underneath it is worth reading carefully, because if it holds, it does not stay narrow for long.

The eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, announced the action on 30 July 2026 following a year-long investigation. The Statement of Claim details a pattern of alleged failures: Telegram did not remove footage of the Christchurch mosque attack even after user reports, did not adequately prohibit terrorism content through its terms of service, and failed to remove accounts and channels after becoming aware of pro-terror material. Telegram disputes the allegations and says it has blocked more than 150,000 terrorist-related communities and removed over 200 million pieces of terrorist content globally.

This is the first time the eSafety Commissioner has legally enforced the online codes and standards that came into effect a year ago. The maximum penalty is $54.6 million, and Inman Grant has flagged that if the court finds against Telegram and it refuses to pay, she will explore asking the court to ban access to the app in Australia entirely.

Telegram is infrastructure, not a publisher — and that difference is what's on trial

None of that sounds unreasonable if you start from the premise that Telegram is a social media platform. The problem is that Telegram is not quite that, and the distinction matters.

Telegram began as an encrypted messaging service, designed specifically to resist government surveillance. That origin story is not just corporate mythology: Telegram's limited moderation is the feature that makes it valuable to journalists, activists, and dissidents operating under authoritarian governments. The same architecture that protects a journalist in Tehran is what allowed extremist channels to operate with limited oversight. You cannot surgically remove one without affecting the other, because they are the same property.

You cannot surgically remove one without affecting the other, because they are the same property.

This is precisely the tension the phone analogy is designed to expose. Telstra carries calls between criminals. It carries calls between terrorists. We have never argued Telstra bears civil liability for that, because we understand Telstra as infrastructure rather than a publisher. The question the Telegram case forces into the open is whether that distinction can survive the shift to digital platforms, and if it can, where exactly the line sits.

The $750,000 X Corp win is the wrong precedent to carry into this case

The eSafety Commissioner's confidence is high after extracting $750,000 from Elon Musk's X Corp for failing to provide information on its child protection approaches. That was a disclosure case, not a content case. This is different. Asking a platform to hand over compliance documents is one thing. Holding it liable for content transmitted through its systems at scale, in real time, in encrypted channels it cannot read, is a substantially larger claim.

The structure of the Online Safety Act does draw a distinction between different kinds of services. But laws designed to regulate social media feeds were not engineered with the encrypted messaging use case at the centre. When you apply broad statutory duties to a platform that operates more like communications infrastructure than a content publisher, the downstream implications are not confined to Telegram. They apply to any service that carries user-generated content and lacks the capacity to monitor it comprehensively, which describes most of the internet.

The precedent this sets will be available to any future government

Australia has been among the more aggressive jurisdictions in pushing back on big tech, and some of that aggression has been warranted. Platforms that resisted basic accountability while profiting from the engagement that outrage and extremism generate had that accountability coming. But there is a difference between requiring platforms to act on content they are aware of and building a legal framework that creates open-ended liability for content they cannot see. The first is a reasonable regulatory demand. The second creates an incentive to either surveil everything or permit nothing, and neither of those endpoints is where a free society wants to land.

The case will take years to resolve. Telegram will contest it. The Federal Court may draw limits the Commissioner has not drawn herself. But the legal architecture being tested here will outlast this particular action, and the precedent it sets will be available to any future government, regardless of what it does with it.

That is the thing about the first steps of a new legal framework. They look like targeted enforcement until they don't.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Australia taking Telegram to court over terrorist content?
The eSafety Commissioner alleges Telegram breached the Online Safety Act 2021 by failing to detect and remove extremist content — including footage of the Christchurch and Buffalo mass shootings — even after receiving user reports. It is the first time the Commissioner has legally enforced the online codes and standards that came into force a year ago.

What happens if Telegram loses the case and refuses to pay?
The eSafety Commissioner has flagged she will ask the Federal Court to ban Australian users from accessing the app entirely. That would be the most sweeping enforcement action taken under the Online Safety Act to date.

Why can't Telegram just remove the terrorist content the way other platforms do?
Telegram was built as an encrypted messaging service designed to resist surveillance, and that architecture makes comprehensive content monitoring technically very difficult. The same feature that limits moderation is what makes Telegram valuable to journalists and dissidents in authoritarian countries.

Could this case set a precedent that applies to other messaging apps or even phone networks?
That is exactly the risk the article identifies. If the court accepts that a platform bears liability for content it carries but cannot practically monitor, the legal logic is difficult to confine to Telegram — it could in principle reach any communications infrastructure that transmits user-generated content at scale.

How is the Telegram case different from Australia's earlier action against X Corp?
The $750,000 penalty against X Corp was a disclosure case — X failed to provide information about its child protection practices. The Telegram action goes further, seeking to hold a platform liable for the content itself, transmitted through encrypted channels the platform cannot read in real time.