Durov supported unblocking Telegram for the sake of convenience and safety of Russians • The Bell • RIMA

Durov supported unblocking Telegram for the sake of convenience and safety of Russians

The creator of the secure messenger Telegram Pavel Durov supported the initiative to unblock it in Russia.

The initiative belongs to the deputies Tumusov and Ionin, each of whom has a Telegram, said Durov. “Unblocking would allow thirty million Telegram users in Russia to use the service more comfortably. In addition, it could have a positive impact on the innovative development and national security of the country,” he believes.

According to Durov, the claims of two years ago regarding the use of Telegram by terrorists are no longer relevant due to the actions of the messenger itself. “With the full preservation of the secrecy of correspondence within the framework of Telegram’s privacy policy, mechanisms have been developed that allow preventing terrorist attacks around the world,” writes the creator of the messenger.

Durov believes that the fight against terrorism does not exclude the secrecy of personal correspondence: "I hope that taking into account world practice and the specifics of modern technologies will help Russian legislators combine these two tasks."

The bill of the right-wing Russians Tumusov and Ionin was prepared back in April. They propose to stop the farce with the ban on the messenger, which has become the de facto official channel of government agencies (including the Moscow headquarters for coronavirus).
At the end of May, the Ministry of Communications announced that it would not support the project.
Experts pointed out that the main obstacle to removing the blocking remains the "encryption keys" that the messenger refused to give to the Russian special services. The FSB claimed that it was with the help of Telegram that the April 2017 terrorist attack in the St. Petersburg metro was being prepared. But the keys can be replaced in some alternative way. Perhaps this is exactly what Durov is hinting at now.

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