Two Russian Internet search engines drop Telegram links from their results

If you’re one of the weirdos who uses the Internet search engines Mail.ru or Sputnik, you’re no longer seeing Telegram hyperlinks in your search results. On Thursday, Roskomnadzor told the newspaper Kommersant that these two search engines have connected to Russia’s Federal State Information System, which automatically restricts access to blocked online resources.

The two biggest search engines in Russia that people actually use, Yandex and Google, haven’t started removing hyperlinks to Telegram, but Roskomnadzor claims that the companies are currently testing this process.

What's happening with Russia's Telegram block? Since April 16, Roskomnadzor has blocked millions of IP addresses in an effort to cut off access to Telegram. Thanks to some technical wizardry (read about that here), the instant messenger is still working for most Russian users, but the federal censor has managed to disrupt hundreds of other online services using cloud services blacklisted by the government. Business groups say Roskomnadzor is abusing its authority; they're calling for an investigation by the Attorney General’s Office.