Might be a stupid question, but why is it always Telegram that gets talked about? Are other secure communications services like Signal, Keybase, etc already blocked?
In the context of Russia, the company that made Telegram is headed by Pavel Durov, creator of the main Russian social network, vk.com. Don't know the exact history, but ultimately the social network ownership was transferred to a large IT corp, and Pavel Durov had some falling out with big wigs, and left Russia to create Telegram.
He is a kind of a rebellious figure in modern Russia, and, as younger generation generally dislikes the regime, he is viewed favorably, and a lot of Russians use Telegram because of that.
So blocking Telegram would be a "we're stronger than you" move by the government.
>> a lot of Russians use Telegram because of that.
This is a big overstatement.
Telegram received an initial traction from the vk.com userbase. It has very little to do with either the functionality (except may be the channels) or an ideological stance of he creators. VK simply advertised the messenger actively at launch.
Practically all other IMs (except the earlier WhatsApp and Viber) have almost no userbase in Russia.
Oh, than it's just me being not clear enough. Everything I've said was only about Russian segment, because I was countering an opinion that Durov's creds played a significant role in adoption in Russia.
As I remember, Telegram first didn't even have the Russian language in UI and was used mostly in developing countries in South America and Middle Asia. For example, it was very popular in Iran and was used to spread information about recent anti-government protests [1].
Signal or Keybase are not blocked in Russia. I suppose that is because they don't have many users like Telegram. WhatsApp is known to comply with Russian legislation (and ironically several of its addresses were accidentally blocked while trying to disrupt Telegram service).
I rechecked information and probably I was wrong. In Russia there is an official registry of companies and websites which are "distributors of information" and WhatsApp is not there. The companies in the registry are required by law to retain information about users at least for 6 months and provide it to authorities in some cases. Telegram is added to the registry.
In case anyone is curious to see what sites are interesting to the authorities, here is a copy of the registry in Russian [1] and a machine-translated version [2].
The first ones added to the registry in 2014 were a dating website (mamba), Russian social network VK, email services (Yandex and Mail.ru) and IT news websites Habrahabr and Roem. Probably developers and sysadmins are considered dangerous people so they need supervision.
Also there is a website snap.com operated by Snap Inc.
I haven't used Signal, so I don't know much about it. I know that Telegram has native clients for multiple platforms (real apps, not HTML/JS apps). For example, its Windows client is written in Qt and works on Windows XP. It is also very realiable and works good even on bad mobile connections.
Telegram has channels - it is like a microblog where the owner can post messages and images, and everybody else can only read them.
And in Russia Telegram is well known (unlike Signal) because its founder (Durov) is also a founder of social network VK.
Judging by screenshots, Telegram and Signal UI look similar (well, almost every IM app looks the same).
As I understand Signal, as Telegram, requires a phone number for registration and therefore doesn't provide much privacy (the government can easily track your location and identify you). I wouldn't give a real phone number to any of them.
> why is it always Telegram that gets talked about?
Telegram is in the news because the Russian government picks on them so much. Russian government concentrates on Telegram because it's popular with the generation of Russians born after the collapse of USSR.
Russians are the very best at memes, the memes get spread by Telegram.
Telegram has this concept of 'Channels', which are basically an easier to use Twitter.
A person makes a channel, a Telegram user can easily subscribe to it.
Many popular Russian politicians, entertainers and media figures have Telegram channels that are subscribed to by 10s of thousands of users.
I don't know how Telegram makes money, I cannot remember ever seeing an ad in Telegram.
I forgot to add earlier that Telegram channels are 1 way. You subscribe to a channel, you don't communicate with the person publishing content to the channel... in the channel.
The updates you get in your Telegram channel are easier to deal with than just following someone on Twitter.
I guess it's more to do with trends and mass adoption. Telegram is a lot more popular than Signal or Keybase, and in particular is more popular than WhatsApp in certain areas of the world. Telegram has also been very effectively marketed as a tool for political activism, so groups using it would be targets.
1) Telegram Channels has channels among other features. This is like streaming rss feeds right to your IM. Channels quickly became a most useful thing for media that is opposed to the regime or just shares the information that would be censored otherwise
2) Telegram has no censorship, the do not block those channels either
3) Their security might not be perfect, but it was enough for the said media to deliver information withough being caught in any way. Some of the media actually switched to Telegram Channels completely.
All of this (and some other minor things) goes agains the will of the regime obviously.
Not being able to see or hear what people say about you is on thing, they can deal with this like they did years ago. But they can't stand the fact that they can't controll the flow of systematized information.
He is a kind of a rebellious figure in modern Russia, and, as younger generation generally dislikes the regime, he is viewed favorably, and a lot of Russians use Telegram because of that.
So blocking Telegram would be a "we're stronger than you" move by the government.