begun<\/a> blocking illegal content and has sufficient time to meet Russian regulatory requirements, according to a senior parliamentary committee member overseeing the matter.<\/p>\nAndrey Svintsov, deputy chairman of the Committee on Information Policy at the State Duma, told state news agency TASS that the messaging platform has started actively complying with Russian Federation requirements. \u201cOver the past week, Telegram has blocked more than 230,000 channels and pieces of content that violated current legislation,\u201d Svintsov stated. \u201cThis indicates that Durov\u2019s company has begun to interact more actively.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russian authorities slowed traffic to the messenger earlier this month, citing non-compliance with national regulations. Media reports emerged this week suggesting the platform could be fully blocked on April 1, though Russian officials have neither confirmed nor denied the reports.<\/p>\n
Svintsov said Telegram could fulfill Roskomnadzor\u2019s requirements within one to two months and continue operating in Russia. \u201cIn my opinion, Telegram will not be blocked before April 1,\u201d he stated, referring to messenger founder and CEO Pavel Durov.<\/p>\n
Roskomnadzor, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, serves as Russia\u2019s telecommunications regulator and media oversight body. According to Svintsov, the requirements include opening a legal entity, storing data on Russian territory, paying taxes and blocking prohibited content. \u201cOpening a legal entity takes a week at most. Moving personal data processing takes another two or three weeks,\u201d the deputy said.<\/p>\n
Last summer, reports that Telegram was preparing to establish an office in Russia under the country\u2019s \u201clanding law\u201d were denied by Durov, either directly or indirectly, according to previous media accounts.<\/p>\n
Yulia Dolgova, president of the Russian Association of Bloggers and Agencies, told TASS that determining whether Telegram will be fully blocked remains difficult at this stage. She noted that unlike WhatsApp, Telegram is actively taking measures to maintain service functionality. Roskomnadzor completely removed Meta\u2019s WhatsApp domain from its DNS servers last week, effectively blocking access from Russia. Dolgova also noted widespread VPN usage among Russian users to bypass such restrictions.<\/p>\n
Telegram, the government and crypto<\/h2>\n
The Telegram channel Baza, citing government sources, reported that Roskomnadzor is preparing to \u201cbegin a total blocking of the messenger\u201d on April 1. In response to media inquiries, Roskomnadzor said it had \u201cnothing to add\u201d to previous statements threatening \u201csequential restrictions.\u201d<\/p>\n
TASS reported this week that Telegram\u2019s administration blocked 238,800 channels and groups on February 15 and 187,300 channels and groups worldwide on February 16, according to updated statistics on the messenger\u2019s website. As of February 17, more than 7.463 million groups and channels have been blocked on Telegram since the beginning of the year, the agency reported.<\/p>\n
Telegram ranks as the second most popular messaging application in Russia with 93.6 million users, trailing WhatsApp, which had 94.5 million monthly users before being blocked. As Russia implements restrictive measures against both platforms while promoting the state-backed Max messenger, Russian citizens have increasingly turned to imo, a U.S.-made messaging alternative, according to reports.<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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