Min says Telegram woes overblown, more questions to WhatsApp, Viber

MOSCOW, Oct 18 (PRIME) -- Attention to the situation with messenger Telegram is overblown, while special services have more questions to such foreign services as WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook, Google, and others, Russian Communication and Mass Media Minister Nikolai Nikiforov said on Wednesday.

“Thanks to the communications service, we have the Telegram topic somehow highlighted. To be honest, I’d be more worried if I were WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook, Google, and so forth. They’ve been always behind the scenes, but the authorities in charge have even more questions for them,” Nikiforov said.

These companies have “much more problems”, while Telegram fulfils requirements of the regulator, including deletion of banned information, the minister said.

On Monday, a Moscow district magistrate’s court fined Telegram 800,000 rubles for its refusal to provide the Federal Security Service with information to decode messages. The messenger received some 200 offers from lawyers ready to protect the messenger in court in response to the company’s public call and chose international human rights group Agora.

(57.3392 rubles – U.S. $1)

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