UPDATE: Watchdog explains short muting of social nets by tech reasons

(Adds comment in last six paragraphs)

MOSCOW, Apr 27 (PRIME) -- The Russian communications service explained on Friday a short blocking of IP addresses of a number of big foreign and local social networks, amid the situation about Telegram’s closure, by technical reasons, and said the resources are muted no more.

Kommersant business daily reported earlier that the communications service had added several IP addresses of Internet giant Yandex and of social networks VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Facebook and Twitter to the register of banned websites. The list also contained IP addresses of Internet company Yahoo and Russian portal LiveInternet.

The authority said in a Facebook post, “In view of media reports on blocking of IP addresses of Russian and foreign social networks we inform: IP addresses of social networks are free from any blocking. A short-term presence on the register (of banned resources) of certain IP addresses was caused by technological features of the system’s work.”

The watchdog said it had not sent these addresses to connection operators to limit access to the resources.

The authority is closing the IP addresses used by Telegram, which was blocked nationwide earlier in April, which has provoked issues in work of some third-party resources.

Yandex is waiting for further explanations from the service on having added some of its IP addresses to the register, while the effort to block Telegram has hit the whole Runet, the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet.

“Last night five IP addresses of Yandex suddenly appeared on the register of the communications service. Our addresses were on the register for about two hours, now the IP addresses are absent from the list. The shift in charge of our technical specialists was actively monitoring the situation all night long and supported full availability of our services. We’re waiting for explanations from the communications service,” a Yandex spokesperson said.

“We do not think the situation is normal. The Russian market can develop only in the environment of open competition. Restricted access to global and Russian online services will damage the Runet in first place. We view a lack of liberty and a lack of choice for users as the most dangerous consequence of blocking.”

“The absence of openness and competition on the internal market does not only worsen the quality of products, which makes users suffer, but also deprives the country of an opportunity of technological competition on global markets in the future.”

Social networks VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, both owned by Internet company Mail.Ru Group, said they constantly monitor the availability of their resources and try to ensure trouble-free functioning of their services.

“Thanks to quick actions of the technical team, the website and applications continued working without issues for all millions of users of Odnoklassniki,” a social network spokesperson said.

End