Earlier last month, Moscow’s Tagansky Court issued an ‘immediate ban’ on popular messaging service Telegram. The ban was implemented because Telegram repeatedly refused to provide encryption keys to Russia’s telecommunications watchdog Roskomnadzor. Following the court ruling, the Russian government also asked Google and Apple to remove the Telegram app from their respective stores, and even contacted APK Mirror to stop serving Telegram’s APK on the platform.
This is the second major protest against the Telegram ban and according to OVD-Info human rights monitor, around 20 people were detained by the police during the protest.
Telegram was founded by Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov in 2013 and instantly gained success due to the end-to-end encryption it offers. The app is available for free on both iOS and Android, and claims to have more than 200 million monthly active users globally.
