Telegram has begun blocking illegal content and has enough time to meet all Russian demands, according to a top member of a parliamentary committee concerned with the matter.
Authorities in Moscow slowed down traffic to the popular messenger earlier this month, alleging non-compliance with national regulations.
The measure was followed by media reports this week that the platform will be fully blocked on April 1, which Russian officials have yet to deny or confirm.
Telegram’s compliance with regulations to help avoid its blocking in Russia
Telegram has started actively complying with the Russian Federation’s requirements to block illegal content. That’s according to Andrey Svintsov, deputy chairman of the Committee on Information Policy at the State Duma, the lower house of Russian parliament.
Speaking to the official TASS news agency, Svintsov stated:
“Over the past week, Telegram has blocked more than 230,000 channels and pieces of content that violated current legislation. This indicates that Durov’s company has begun to interact more actively.”
“In my opinion, Telegram will not be blocked before April 1,” Svintsov added, speaking of the messenger founded and owned by Pavel Durov, who is also its CEO.
The tech entrepreneur left Russia more than a decade ago after rejecting pressure to hand over user data and censor content on VK, the Russian social network that he also founded and managed at the time.
Svintsov added that Telegram can fulfill the “realistic requirements” of Roskomnadzor within the next month or two and continue to operate in Russia.
Roskomnadzor (RKN), or the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, is Russia’s telecom watchdog, which functions as a media censor as well.
“Opening a legal entity takes a week at most. Moving personal data processing takes another two or three weeks,” the deputy said, elaborating:
“Therefore, within a month or a month and a half, the entire set of requirements from Roskomnadzor can be fulfilled: opening a legal entity, storing data on Russian territory, paying taxes and blocking content.”
Last summer, reports that Telegram is preparing to establish an office and register an entity in Russia, as required by its so-called “landing law,” as well as earlier claims that the messenger was leaving the Russian market, were all directly or indirectly denied by Durov.
Telegram expected to remain available in Russia
It’s difficult to tell whether Telegram will be fully blocked in Russia at this point, according to Yulia Dolgova, president of the Russian Association of Bloggers and Agencies (ABA), who told TASS:
“Regarding a complete shutdown of access to the messenger, it’s difficult to say today. Unlike WhatsApp, Telegram is actively taking measures to maintain the functionality of its service.”
While slowing down Telegram last week, Roskomnadzor completely removed the domain of Meta’s messenger from its DNS servers, effectively cutting off access to WhatsApp from Russia.
Dolgova also highlighted the widespread use of means to bypass such blockades in the country, remarking: “We should not forget about the depth of penetration of VPN services among the Russian audience either.”
Reports of April 1 shutdown neither confirmed nor denied
Quoting sources from government agencies on Tuesday, the Telegram channel Baza posted that the RKN is preparing to “begin a total blocking of the messenger” on April 1.
Reacting to Russian media reports relaying this information, Roskomnadzor said it had “nothing to add” to its earlier statements, which threatened imposing “sequential restrictions.”
This week, TASS also revealed that on February 15, the messenger’s administration blocked 238,800 channels and groups that violated its policies.
It did the same regarding 187,300 channels and groups worldwide on February 16, the agency added, claiming to be quoting “updated statistics on the messenger’s 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 news agency also noted.
With 93.6 million users in Russia, Telegram is the second most popular messaging app in the country after WhatsApp, which had 94.5 million monthly users before it was blocked.
While Russia is taking restrictive measures against both and pushing the state-backed Max messenger, its citizens have been flocking to another alternative, the U.S.-made imo, as reported by Cryptopolitan.