As India temporarily bans Telegram, which other countries have restricted the messaging app?

ByTech Word News

Telegram, a popular messaging app known for its resistance to government control, has been widely used by protesters and news organizations that shun authoritarian control. However, it has also been accused of enabling terrorism, crime and disinformation.

Governments around the world have tried to curb Telegram through bans, restrictions and criminal investigations, including in France, where its creator faced criminal charges.

The app was banned in Russia, where it was used for political dissent; restricted to government-issued facilities in Ukraine for national security reasons; and temporarily suspended in Brazil for what authorities said was its failure to curb illegal activities.

In the latest example, India this week banned the app until June 22 after discovering it had been used in a fraudulent effort to sell pages that users claimed were leaked from an upcoming national medical school entrance exam.

Here is a partial list of places where Telegram has faced regulatory hurdles.

India, one of Telegram’s biggest markets with more than 150 million users, temporarily banned Telegram in what the government called a last-ditch effort to stop efforts to scam students preparing for medical school entrance exams.

Millions of candidates took the test in May. But India’s National Testing Agency said on Tuesday that Telegram channels had sold candidates and their families what it called leaked exam questions that turned out to be fake. It also canceled the exam scores and scheduled a retest for Sunday.

The move has sparked discontent and protests among young people who accuse the government of mismanaging the examination system.

Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, criticized the ban, writing to X that he was punishing ordinary Telegram users and not people cheating exam participants. He added that Telegram has removed hundreds of channels related to exam materials and related scams in India.

Russia, where Mr. Durov was born, also banned Telegram. In 2018, a Russian court allowed the government to block Telegram after the app refused to give Russian security services access to users’ encrypted messages. Mr. Durov, who fled the country in 2014, said the app’s encryption systems made it impossible for the company to comply with government demands.

The move ran into technical obstacles. It also put the Kremlin in an awkward position because Telegram was widely used by Russian government agencies. By 2020, Russia had lifted its ban, with Telegram agreeing, among other things, to increase efforts to block extremist content.

Earlier this year, the Russian government tried again to block Telegram as part of a wider crackdown on free speech on the internet during its war against Ukraine. Russia’s communications regulator accused Telegram of failing to fight fraud, protect personal data and prevent terrorists and criminals from using the app.

Mr Durov hit back, saying the government was restricting access to Telegram to force Russians to switch to the state-controlled app, which he said was “created for surveillance and political censorship”. Telegram is now effectively blocked in the country.

During Russia’s war in Ukraine, Telegram was a lifeline for millions of Ukrainians seeking information about impending Russian attacks or seeking food and medical aid. However, Ukrainian officials have also expressed concern that the platform enables Russian disinformation and espionage.

Ukrainian authorities banned military and government officials and people working on critical infrastructure from using Telegram on their work phones in 2024 for security reasons. Some officials have proposed rules requiring Telegram to reveal who is behind large anonymous channels.

Telegram has run into obstacles in other European countries. In 2023, Norway’s Minister of Justice said in an official announcement that civil servants should not have Telegram or TikTok on their work devices because the government saw the apps as threats to national security.

In France, authorities arrested Mr. Durov when he landed there in 2024 and charged him with a wide range of crimes for failing to prevent illegal activity on the app. He was also banned from leaving the country. Telegram has played a role in many criminal cases in France involving child sexual abuse, drug trafficking and online hate crimes.

Telegram said at the time that it complies with the laws of the European Union and that it is absurd to claim that the platform or its owner is responsible for the misuse of the platform.

Mr. Durov was temporarily allowed to leave France last year. He said at the time that he had returned home to Dubai.

Brazil’s Supreme Court banned Telegram nationwide in 2022 ahead of presidential elections. It said the app had failed to comply with orders to remove accounts linked to a supporter of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who was under investigation for spreading disinformation and threatening Supreme Court justices.

Mr. Durov said in an apology at the time that Telegram did not always respond to Brazil’s Supreme Court because the company missed the court’s emails.

The ban was lifted when Telegram complied with court orders. Another Brazilian judge ordered Telegram to be blocked nationwide in 2023 after it failed to comply with court orders demanding complete user data from neo-Nazi group chats. Telegram told police at the time that the groups had been deleted and that it could not recover the data.

An appeals court later overturned that suspension but upheld the hefty fine.

Hari Kumar contributed reporting.