Russia Demands Popular Chat Application Telegram To Be Blocked

The Russian Court of Moscow has demanded that the popular chat application Telegram would be blocked in the country effective immediately, at the request of the Roskomnadzor, the Russian federal service for supervision of communications.

The nation’s government has pressured Telegram to hand over its encryption keys so that Russian authorities would have access to user’s messages and data. The government claims it’s to combat terrorism, but it’s no secret that this would come at the cost of privacy and encryption. Telegram already lost a bid in the Supreme Court a couple of weeks ago and was forced to give up the encryption keys within 15 days.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov simply refused to hand over any encryption keys.

“At Telegram, we have the luxury of not caring about revenue streams or ad sales. Privacy is not for sale, and human rights should not be compromised out of fear or greed.”

Durov, of Russian origin himself, was also the founder of Russia’s most popular social network VK, which resembles Facebook in many ways. Durov has been forced to live in exile since 2014 because he claims he had to give up control of the social media platform to President Putin’s allies.

Telegram calls the decision “unconstitutional” and is already investigating how to circumvent the block. It’s possible that the app will support a VPN so that Russian users will still be able to access the app. Russia Demands Popular Chat Application Telegram To Be Blocked