Telegram was banned in Russia earlier this week

Apr 17, 2018 09:50 GMT  ·  By

Russia wants both Google and Apple to remove Telegram from their app stores after the country’s state telecommunications regulator, Roskomnadzor, banned the messaging service in the country earlier this week.

Neither Apple nor Google responded to the request, but the ban would only be aimed at the Russian market, so users in other countries will still be allowed to download the app.

Pavel Durov, the Russian founder of Telegram, said that despite the ban, people in Russia would continue to use encrypted communication channels, either by switching to different apps bundling such technology or turning to VPN services to bypass the restriction and use Telegram.

The Russian regulator decided to block Telegram on Monday after the company refused to hand over encryption keys that would allow the government to access user data. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSS) requested access to Telegram conversations in order to read messages of suspected terrorists and extremists.

“Telegram is all about privacy”

Durov, however, refused to comply, explaining in a statement on his Telegram channel that “privacy is not for sale.”

“The power that local governments have over IT corporations is based on money. At any given moment, a government can crash their stocks by threatening to block revenue streams from its markets and thus force these companies to do strange things (remember how last year Apple moved iCloud servers to China),” Durov said.

“At Telegram, we have the luxury of not caring about revenue streams or ad sales. Privacy is not for sale, and human rights should not be compromised out of fear or greed.”

Russia is reportedly trying to cut access to Telegram by all means, and country officials are also working to ban alternative ways to download the application on mobile devices, including APK links.

Telegram said recently that it has more than 200 million monthly active users worldwide. For comparison, WhatsApp, which is the largest mobile messaging service right now, has more than 1.5 billion monthly users.