Friday, May 11, 2018

Telegram was blocked in Russia


     On April 16th, the Russian telecommunications regulator Roskomnadzor began blocking Telegram, an encrypted messaging app. This app was created by Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov and has more than 200 million users worldwide. After Telegram developers refused to turn over encryption keys for their users data to the Russian Federal Security service, the court banned the app. 
    Telegram is as simply WhatsApp without any of data sharing with Facebook. But Telegram is not only one-on-one communications it has also a lot of different channels and chats which are more popular for app’s users.  And it’s not about the app which can be used for terrorist propaganda and to organize terrorist acts, it’s more about the channels  that deliver current news and analysis anonymously which the government can't control.     
Russia is among the other countries such as China that use "digital firewall" by blocking certain online content. This ban affected  Google, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and  many Russian businesses which confirms some of their services are blocked in Russia over the Telegram ban.  Russian people refused the ban and turned to VPNs to access Telegram channels. People use this app not only because they like privacy, but Telegram is very simple, fast, and has a nice UI.  Banning Telegram is also threatening other similar platforms that protect communications such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and limits human rights.

1 comment:

  1. Current and very informative, Masha. Just make sure to pay careful attention to the spacing between sentences (some have two spaces instead of one) and to paragraphing (making sure that every paragraph is indented).

    ReplyDelete