Telegram isn't a vital service to most Russians, but many users are sticking with the messenger
📊 Minimal support
Just a quarter of Russian Internet users say preserving Telegram access is important to them, according to a new national survey by VTsIOM. Nearly half of all respondents — 43 percent — told the pollsters that Telegram access “doesn’t matter whatsoever.” Being able to use the instant messenger was more important to young people, however. Among Internet users between the ages of 18 and 24, roughly 45 percent of respondents said Telegram access matters to them.
✍️ A little revision
Earlier this week, Russia’s federal censor quietly revised its own regulatory statutes to expand its legal justifications for blocking websites. The changes state that Roskomnadzor can block online resources on the basis of a court ruling in an administrative case involving Russia’s laws on information. The newspaper Kommersant was the first to notice the revisions.
Since April 16, when it ordered ISPs to cut access to Telegram, Roskomnadzor has blocked nearly 18 million IP addresses — most of them belonging to cloud services operated by Amazon and Google. As a result of the crackdown, Google services ranging from YouTube to reCAPTCHA have experienced major disruptions in Russia.
📈 Not so blocked after all
According to analysts at Combot, TGStat and Crosser Bot, Telegram’s total user base in Russia has shrunk by just three percent since the Russian government started trying to block it. The number of posts, meanwhile, is up three percent, and the instant messenger’s channels have witnessed a 23-percent boost in subscriptions.
🙅♂️ They're innocent you gotta believe them
Mail.ru Group denies that it is working with Roskomnadzor to block proxy servers being used to access Telegram. On Tuesday, Mail.ru Group told RBC that its cloud services were used by a client to identify proxy servers accessing Telegram, but the company says it’s since suspended this client from its services in the interests of “Internet freedom.”
Mail.ru Group says it can’t always control how its customers use the company’s cloud services, and pointed out that some of its own proxies have been banned by Roskomnadzor because clients have used them to flout the blocking of Telegram.