[alwayslikethis]

Good luck. They tried to block it in Russia, but it simply broke their own internet for a while and the effectiveness was spotty until they gave up. To this day I believe there is quite little cooperation between the Russian government and Telegram, despite not being E2EE by default, if we don't consider conspiracy theories, unlike all the other services used in Russia which are basically all backdoored by the state directly. I don't think Telegram has a legal presence in Brazil though. How are they going to enforce the fine?

[matheusmoreira]

> I don't think Telegram has a legal presence in Brazil though. How are they going to enforce the fine?

You're commenting on the news of their enforcement. They are completely fine with blocking Telegram nation-wide until they reveal the user data and pay the fine.

Don't give me that "good luck" speech either. The article mentions the same judges blocked Telegram last year. I submitted news of that here and people here gave me the exact same "lol good luck telegram didn't even submit to Russia" response. A few days later I got the news that Telegram paid the fine.

[bee_rider]

Paying the fine could be a reasonable decision, depending on their priorities.

Paying the fine and providing the user data basically renders the whole service pointless, right? It is better to be blocked in Brazil than to be useless everywhere I guess.

[germanier]

Although Telegram still claims

> To this day, we have disclosed 0 bytes of user data to third parties, including governments. https://telegram.org/faq

and the Telegram transparency bot states when queried from Germany

> No transparency report is available for your region. If any IP addresses or phone numbers are shared in accordance with 8.3 of the Privacy Policy, we will publish a transparency report within 6 months of it happening and will continue publishing semiannual reports.

German prosecutors seem to have received such information

> There were then some direct talks between representatives of the Ministry of Interior and the Telegram founder and boss, the Russian Pavel Durov. It was said that a willingness to cooperate was signaled. Telegram even named a direct contact person for the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). ... The BKA has requested such data as email or IP addresses in "230 exemplary cases" so far. Only in slightly more than 60 cases was there even a response, and only in 25 cases was data actually transmitted. translated from https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/wdr/telegram-justiz-1...

So someone is lying and I doubt it's the German government which is trying to pressure them to give up even more data.

[din_sup]

That's shady. The court order is very clear about what data was disclosed (IP address and registered phone number of the group admin), and why the court deemed it "not enough" (they wanted the data for all the group participants). https://www.conjur.com.br/dl/telegram-decisao-suspensao.pdf

[matheusmoreira]

> Paying the fine and providing the user data basically renders the whole service pointless, right? It is better to be blocked in Brazil than to be useless everywhere I guess.

I would hope so. Apparently not.

[pmeira]

Last year when something like this happened, it came out that there's a legal representative in Rio: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/brazil/2022/0...

[buitreVirtual]

So they can talk to the representatives. They cannot make them remove the app.

[nosianu]

> They cannot make them remove the app

From the article:

> Later, several Telegram users said they could no longer use the messaging app after local carriers complied with the ruling. Google and Apple were also ordered to block the app.

So yes, apparently they can. Or did you think it needed Telegram's cooperation?

Even if it is possible to install apps manually, most users are not "power users" able or even just willing (or willing to learn) to do that. Another aspect of the much more curated software world of Android or iPhone vs. PCs, where blocking would indeed be mostly useless even for regular users.

[justinclift]

Can't they also throw the representative in jail (etc)?

[matheusmoreira]

They can, and they have. Big Tech representatives in the country have been jailed for not fully complying with court orders.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-executive-released-fro...

Google representatives too, if I remember correctly. Something to do with Google not erasing some celebrity's leaked nude photos from search results.

[suslik]

Jailing people for that is beyond horrible. Why would anyone want to appoint a legal representative in a country that does things like that, I have no idea.

[matheusmoreira]

I have no idea why these corporations come here either. Only reason I haven't left this place behind is my family refused to leave with me. They must be making truckloads of money if they put up with this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/brazilian...

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/arrest-google-brazil-head-sti...

https://www.theverge.com/2012/9/26/3413476/google-brazil-you...

https://observer.com/2012/09/brazil-google-president-mayoral...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/google-exec-detained-in-braz...

https://thenextweb.com/news/googles-president-brazil-operati...

[tambourine_man]

It’s what happens when you break the law. I don’t know what you expect.

[dormento]

To be able to "do business" there, whatever it may entail. Contrary to the popular held opinion on certain online communities, businesses must respect local laws and regulations to be able to conduct their activities.

[kelnos]

> I don't think Telegram has a legal presence in Brazil though. How are they going to enforce the fine?

I'm sure they are banking on the idea that Telegram cares more about having users in Brazil than about the money. The Brazilian government can decide not to unblock Telegram until they pay the fines.

Of course, if it's that difficult to block Telegram as you suggest, they may eventually give up on both the fines and the blocking.

[zamnos]

It's not about the money. The fines are because Telegram won't reveal who's operating (neo-Nazi) accounts on their platform, with an added bit of political shenanigans to muddy the waters on top of it.

[stefan_]

It's a nice story, the founder in exile fighting to keep his unrestricted messaging service, even against the fangs of an authoritarian government that regularly outright murders people around the world. A history of some technical sloppyness, we overlook it as "growth hacking". I'm afraid believing in that is about as smart as those criminals were trusting EncroChat.

[azangru]

> To this day I believe there is quite little cooperation between the Russian government and Telegram

I find it fascinating that Telegram is (and was back when they tried to block it) the most popular messenger and possibly even social network in Russia. Dmitry Medvedev, for crying out loud, writes his thuggish notes on Telegram, from which they then get propagated by mass media. Ramzan Kadyrov, too, posts to Telegram. It's so embarrassing to see after their attempt to block it for some reason.

[xinayder]

They can and they have blocked it.

There's a law for the internet in Brazil, called Marco Civil, which literally states that ISPs can be blocked and forbidden from providing services if they don't comply with takedown requests issued by the authorities.

They were blocked quite a few times in the past 4-5 years. If I remember correctly there was a time that it was blocked for up to 2 days because they were deciding if they should pay the fine and hand over the data, or remain blocked.

I totally disagree with these rulings in favor of blocking social media apps (even though it could do us good by banning or difficulting disinformation from reaching people), but you do realize that Telegram is not the app it used to be or should be anymore, right? Pavel Durov, its CEO, is an absolute weirdo that tries to play god because he owns huge social media platforms, one of them being VK, which is heavily monitored by the Russian government.

So, if you think you are safe using Telegram, think again.

[eitland]

> Pavel Durov, its CEO, is an absolute weirdo that tries to play god because he owns huge social media platforms, one of them being VK, which is heavily monitored by the Russian government.

VK was stolen from him and given to people who were friends with the regime.

So yes, VK is heavily monitored and controlled by Russian authorities and it seems a good deal of effort went into preventing that from happening again.

[vitorgrs]

Since last year Telegram has a legal presence in Brazil.

[karp773]

"Blocking" in Russia was nothing else than an internal drill by KGB to check robustness to possible blocking in the target fields of operations, e.g. Brazil.

If Russia TRULY wanted to block Telegram, then Mr. Durov, who accidentally operates from and resides in Russia, would have been kidnapped and tortured until Telegram goes down or he hands the keys over to KGB.

Since Durov is still alive and free... the conclusion is kind of obvious.

[mmxmb]

Telegram is operated from UAE. Durov left Russia in 2014.

[mehanig]

Durov don't operate from Russia and wasn't operating during those "blockings", so this theory does not hold up.

[dgroshev]

Durov was seen in StPetersburg for years after the "exile" [1], and Telegram was being developed from exactly the same office it was before the "exile", one floor below Vkontakte. The story Durov tells is at the very least incomplete.

[1]: here's Durov breaking someone's phone for making his photo in a shopping centre in 2017 https://360tv.ru/news/proisshestviya/pavel-durov-razbil-tele...

[esperent]

Durov operates from the UAE which is a strong ally of Russia (despite them spending a lot of money to convince people otherwise). It's not like he emigrated to Europe or something.

[sofixa]

Calling the UAE a Russian ally is a massive stretch. They're not allied with the US nor Russia, they're allied with their big neighbours, Saudi Arabia, and have good relationships with many important countries (US, Russia, India, etc.) but don't follow anyone's line (outside of Saudi Arabia and it cost them dearly in Yemen, so they probably don't anymore) near-automatically.

Lots of Russians in the UAE, including running away from Putin's folly/conscription.

[esperent]

> Calling the UAE a Russian ally is a massive stretch.

No, it is not. Of course they look out for themselves first. However, in this time of war and international sanctions they are one of the countries who are deepening their ties with Russia.

They are spending a lot of money on PR to make it seem like they are on the side of the west, but in actual fact they have been profiting massively from Russia over the last few years.

They may not be a military ally but they are certainly an economic ally of Russia.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93United_Arab_E...

> Even though Russia invaded Ukraine, business between the two countries strengthened and many Russian businessmen has flocked to Dubai to purchase properties and invest in the region. Trade between the two countries has doubled to $5 billion over the last three years and they are approximately 4,000 companies with Russian roots that are operating within the country.[8]

> According to the leaked confidential US documents,[9] titled “Russia/UAE: Intelligence Relationship Deepening”, the Russian intelligence officials were engaged in strengthening their relations with the United Arab Emirates. The document stated that Russia had convinced the Emirates “to work together against US and UK intelligence agencies”. It also concluded that the UAE viewed it as an “opportunity” to diversify its partnerships, while the US was gradually parting ways from the Emirates. However, the UAE government had dismissed the accusations that they were maintaining close ties with Russian intelligence.[10]

[boeingUH60]

They're looking out for themselves and have profited greatly from the Russian government's folly...good riddance. After all, every country including the US is out for their own interests; none of them are moral beacons.

"Anyone who is not for us is against us" is sheer Western arrogance going back to the days of warmonger George Bush.

[marcinzm]

Yes, that's what it means to not be on anyone's side, you take advantage of whomever is most desperate to make money from them (Russia right now). Then switch to doing the same from the other side if the tides change.

[bandrami]

Eh, the Emirates are more of a wild west than an ally of anybody; kind of like Switzerland back in the cold war. Honestly if there's a single foreign interest in charge it's the Lahore/Mumbai underworld.

[jimbobimbo]

Durov lives in Dubai.

[karp773]

It's funny how such trivially obvious things may cause so much hate and denial. No free media in Russia?! Shocker!