Telegram fined by Russian government for not removing content about war in Ukraine

Last Tuesday (17), the Russian Justice decided to impose two fines totaling 11 million rubles (about R$910,000 in direct conversion) to Telegram on the grounds that the messenger refused to remove content with reference to the war in Ukraine, a war that began in February 2022 and has no end date.

According to the country’s authorities, the messenger maintained a channel on the platform that taught Ukrainian citizens methods of sabotaging means of transport used by Russia and Belarus, a country that borders Ukraine, being used by the government of Vladimir Putin to disembark military troops, preventing the advance of the army.

In addition to the accusation of not restricting channels with military guidelines against Russia, the Justice also fined the app for maintaining channels that spread false information about the number of Russian troops casualties during the war and inciting civil demonstrations against Moscow in the population.

Pavel Durov, creator of Telegram, has not yet taken a position on the fines. However, it should be noted that the messenger leads in the number of total users in Russia after the country banned Western social networks belonging to Meta, such as Facebook and Instagram, under the “extremism” law.

According to information from a report, the daily usage of Telegram grew by 66% from 25 million users in January to 41.5 million in July 2022, with the biggest increase taking place in March: from 27.5 to 40.6 million users. diaries, indicating the direct influence of the ban from Meta’s networks.