In early June, the Russian Supervisory authority blocked four major instant messenger: Line, BlackBerry, Imo, and Vchat. The reason: the refusal of these companies to keep all correspondence of the users and provide them upon request to the Russian security services. Last week from the list of locked out service Imo, but instead he got under the hand of the messenger Telegram. Its founder Pavel Durov expressed surprise about the actions of Roskomnadzor, in particular, asked to explain why the latter is not threatening to lock WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.
Durov also emphasized the neutrality of his messenger and said that if it closed, all personal correspondence of officials will be stored on cloud services by Apple and Google, who belong to USA, not Russia.
June 23, the head of Roskomnadzor Alexander Zharov published on the website of his organization an open letter, addressed directly to Paul Durov and the team’s Telegram. According to Zharova, neutrality Durov and the company in relation to the requirements of the Russian state proves their neutrality against the terrorists and criminals who use Telegram for their own purposes. The head of Roskomnadzor hinted that the time to think Telegram is almost gone and we need to hurry with the decision.
Recall that the activity of Roskomnadzor relative to the messenger due to the adoption in Russia of the so-called “Spring package” of bills aimed at strengthening anti-terrorism measures.
