Researching the Evolving Online Ecosystem: Telegram, Discord and Odysee

The report identifies significant obstacles to conducting public interest research on platforms like Telegram, Discord, and Odysee, noting that technological choices, unclear Terms of Service (TOS), and the designation of large groups as 'private' inhibit the systematic monitoring of extremist activity. Through case studies, the authors found that German-language far-right groups on Telegram, English-language religious extremists on Discord, and French-language neo-fascists on Odysee use these platforms to spread hate speech, anti-democratic ideologies, and calls for violence. The report argues that current regulatory frameworks, such as the EU's Digital Services Act, often rely on user-base thresholds that exclude these medium- and small-sized platforms, leaving a gap in oversight and research access.

• Researchers face interconnected technological, ethical, legal, and fragmentation barriers that make it difficult to conduct digital research that is simultaneously systematic, ethical, and legal. For instance, legal risks associated with breaking platform Terms of Service (TOS) can prevent researchers from using systematic search methods to overcome fragmentation.
• On Telegram, the ability for admins to designate groups and channels as 'private' regardless of size creates a loophole for avoiding content moderation and hinders systematic research. Some of these 'private' spaces have thousands of members and are used for harmful activities, including coordinating offline mobilisation and calls for violence against German politicians.
• Discord presents significant fragmentation and legal barriers; its API only allows data collection on a server-by-server basis, and its TOS prohibit the bulk collection of user data (scraping). Ethnographic research is further complicated by vetting questionnaires that often require researchers to use deception or promote problematic beliefs to gain entry.
• Analysis of Discord servers revealed a presence of Catholic and Islamist extremist communities sharing anti-democratic views and hateful content targeting LGBTQ+ communities, Jewish people, and women. Some Islamist extremist servers shared official content from terrorist organisations such as ISIS, al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Hamas.
• Odysee's blockchain-based architecture provides some public data points, such as LBC cryptocurrency transactions, but requires high technical expertise to analyze. The platform is used by French-language far-right royalists, neo-fascists, and Catholic fundamentalists to spread anti-democratic ideologies, including Holocaust denial and the veneration of National Socialism.
• Odysee serves as a backup or primary outlet for actors banned from mainstream platforms like YouTube. While some organized media outlets use it as part of a multi-platform strategy, others use it to spread extreme content that would violate the TOS of larger platforms or French law.
• Current digital regulations, including the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA) and proposed US laws like PATA and DSOSA, often use monthly active user (MAU) thresholds that exclude smaller and medium-sized platforms, meaning these platforms are not required to provide the same data access for researchers as 'Very Large Online Platforms' (VLOPs).
• The report recommends that platforms establish reasonable member limits for private groups, above which they must be declared public and subject to TOS. It also calls for policy-makers to introduce legal protections for researchers conducting public interest, privacy-respecting research to prevent platforms from using TOS to insulate themselves from scrutiny.

APA

Tuck, H., Guhl, J., Smirnova, J., Gerster, L., & Marsh, O. (2023). Researching the Evolving Online Ecosystem: Telegram, Discord and Odysee. Institute for Strategic Dialogue. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Researching-the-Evolving-Online-Ecosystem_Telegram-Discord-Odysee.pdf

Chicago

Tuck, Henry, Jakob Guhl, Julia Smirnova, Lea Gerster, and Oliver Marsh. Researching the Evolving Online Ecosystem: Telegram, Discord and Odysee. Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2023. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Researching-the-Evolving-Online-Ecosystem_Telegram-Discord-Odysee.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Tuck |first1=Henry |last2=Guhl |first2=Jakob |last3=Smirnova |first3=Julia |last4=Gerster |first4=Lea |last5=Marsh |first5=Oliver |title=Researching the Evolving Online Ecosystem: Telegram, Discord and Odysee |publisher=Institute for Strategic Dialogue |date=2023 |url=https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Researching-the-Evolving-Online-Ecosystem_Telegram-Discord-Odysee.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{tuck2023researching, author = {Tuck, Henry and Guhl, Jakob and Smirnova, Julia and Gerster, Lea and Marsh, Oliver}, title = {{Researching the Evolving Online Ecosystem: Telegram, Discord and Odysee}}, institution = {Institute for Strategic Dialogue}, year = {2023}, url = {https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Researching-the-Evolving-Online-Ecosystem_Telegram-Discord-Odysee.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }