The Russian authorities are formally moving ahead with the process by which they could block the popular instant messenger Telegram. On March 20, Russia’s federal censor, Roskomnadzor, officially informed Telegram that it’s in noncompliance with the law, after Telegram refused to provide decrypted copies of all user correspondence to the Federal Security Service. If the messenger doesn’t cave to the Russian government, Roskomnadzor can sue Telegram and bring Russians even closer to losing access to the service. It’s still unclear, however, how long it might be before the authorities could finally decide to order Russian Internet service providers to start blocking Telegram.
Photo on the front page: Sergey Konkov / TASS / Scanpix / LETA