Moscow's legal system bends over backwards to justify Russia's attempted blocking of Telegram

In the Twilight Zone of Russian Internet censorship, Moscow’s City Court revealed on Tuesday that the Tagansky District Court’s ruling to authorize the blocking of Telegram hasn’t yet formally “entered legal force” because Telegram filed an appeal.

Roskomnadzor will continue to block the instant messenger, however, because the district court’s verdict demands its immediate enforcement, and that ruling hasn’t been overturned. In other words, the verdict hasn’t technically “entered force,” but officials started enforcing it immediately because that’s what the judge wanted.

Is your head spinning? Well embrace the twirling, because we only learned all this when the Moscow City Court accidentally wrote on its website that the Tagansky District Court’s April 13 ruling “entered force” on May 15 (thirty days after the verdict). It hasn’t.