Russia blocks Signal messaging app as authorities tighten control over information  

Monitoring websites applications Downradar and Sboy. rf have both revealed that service interruptions have affected Russian social media network Signal messaging users.

jFirst reported by the independent news source iStories, the outage began early on Friday, August 9.

Regarded as one of the safest messaging applications, Signal Messenger lets users share files, have audio and video conversations, and send encrypted texts.

Following the deployment of Russian forces into Ukraine in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin intensified his crackdown on opposition and free media.

READ ALSO: MARKET MONOPOLY: Google moves to appeal ruling in massive antitrust case  

Access to Twitter, which subsequently changed its name to X, as well as Meta’s Facebook and Instagram have been blocked, along with a number of independent Russian-language media outlets that have been critical of the Kremlin.

The director of the Internet Protection Society and the man behind the ZaTelecom Telegram channel, Mikhail Klimarev, claims that Russia started blocking Signal on August 8.

“This indicates precisely a blocking of the messenger in Russia and not a technical problem on the Signal side,” Mikhail Klimarev, author of the Telegram channel “For Telecom”, told Reuters.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now