Russia Should End Block on Durov’s Telegram App, Lawmakers Say

(Bloomberg) -- Russian lawmakers say officials should abandon attempts to block Pavel Durov’s Telegram Group Inc., arguing that government efforts to prevent use of the messenger service have failed.

State Duma lawmakers Fedot Tumusov and Dmitry Ionin submitted a proposal to amend the law and permit unblocking of services acting as essential information sources during emergencies such as the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The government’s virus response center and Communications Ministry are using Telegram as one of their main information resources, it plays an important social role,” the lawmakers from the opposition Just Russia party wrote in a note to the draft amendments. Telegram remains in use in Russia despite government efforts to prevent access and “further blocking is impractical,” according to the note.

A Moscow court ordered telecommunications companies to block Telegram in Russia in April 2018 for refusing to comply with demands to provide the Federal Security Service with access to encryption keys to read messages. The company repeatedly thwarted intense efforts by Russia’s communications regulator to enforce the ban, including by changing IP-addresses to evade blocking.

The call for a change of heart toward the Russian-born entrepreneur in his native country came after Telegram fell foul of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which derailed its plan to start a cryptocurrency for users, forcing it to return $1.7 billion to investors.

Durov, who also founded VKontakte, Russia’s version of Facebook, has repeatedly clashed with local authorities on free-speech and privacy issues. He left the country after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, saying he was unwilling to comply with government demands to turn over personal data on Ukrainian users.

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