Russia renounces blocking Telegram messaging

The Russian authorities had ordered in 2018 the blocking of Telegram, which claims more than 400 million users including 30 million in Russia. They announced on Thursday their intention to lift the ban. REUTERS / Dado Ruvic

Text by: Daniel Vallot Follow

It was the end of a showdown that lasted more than two years: Russia gave up blocking Telegram messaging on its own territory. In the name of the fight against terrorism, Moscow has been trying since the spring of 2018 to prevent Russian Internet users from using this very popular service. But the messaging held up, and ultimately won.

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From our correspondent in Moscow,

No question for the regulatory authorities of the net in Russia to recognize their defeat and their inability to block a messaging that Internet users have continued to use massively in his country of origin. Officially, therefore, the Russian authorities have decided not to block Telegram except because of the "  expressed wish  " by its founder, Pavel Durov , to contribute to the fight against terrorism. But on the bottom, the creator of Telegram, which fled Russia in 2014, gave nothing to the Russian authorities, who therefore still do not have access to the encryption keys of the messaging. At the origin of the standoff, the attacks on the Saint Petersburg metro in 2017 and the use of messaging by the alleged perpetrators of the attack.

30 million users

If the regulatory authorities give up, after two years of conflict with Telegram, it is undoubtedly because of their total powerlessness to gag the service. Despite its multiple injunctions, and the blocking of several million IP addresses, Telegram has indeed continued to operate. With occasional difficulties, but without discouraging the 30 million or so users who have remained loyal to it in Russia.

A situation all the more humiliating for the regulatory authorities as certain Russian administrations have also continued to use messagingto communicate with the public. Like the Moscow city hall, which has used it in recent weeks to inform residents of the Russian capital of the development of the coronavirus epidemic and the measures taken to stem it.

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