Yandex now censors Telegram.org search results for users in Russia

Yandex has stopped showing search results to Internet users in Russia that link to the official website of the instant messenger Telegram, https://telegram.org. The newsletter The Bell was the first media outlet to notice the new policy.

When using the Internet in Russia and searching Google for “telegram,” the messenger’s website is the first result. Internet users in Russia who turn to Yandex for the same search, however, find no links whatsoever to https://telegram.org.

Yandex’s press office told the Telegram channel Kod Durova that the hyperlinks are deleted automatically from the search engine’s results, after they’re entered into Roskomnadzor’s registry of banned online materials. “It’s not really up to us. Apparently this link has been added to RKN’s registry. Synchronization with the registry is automatic. Yandex removes hyperlinks as new data is received,” the search engine’s spokesperson said.

The hyperlink is only censored for Yandex’s users in Russia.

In April 2018, a Moscow district court granted a request by Russia’s federal censor to block Telegram nationwide for refusing to share encryption keys with the Federal Security Service. The messenger’s websites were subsequently added to Russia’s Internet blacklist.