Moscow blocks Signal messaging app for violating Russian laws
Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor (RKN) said it has blocked Signal throughout Russia over legal violations and national security concerns.
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Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor (RKN) confirmed on Friday that it has blocked Signal, an encrypted messenger app, due to legal violations and national security concerns.
"Access to the Signal messaging app is blocked in connection with violation of the requirements of Russian legislation…,” Roskomnadzor told the RBC business daily on Friday, the Moscow Times reported.
The app allegedly violates Russian laws “necessary to prevent the use of the messenger for terrorist and extremist purposes,” RKN said.
Russia has blocked Signal, one of the most secure messaging apps, state media regulator Roskomnadzor confirmed Friday.
undefined The Moscow Times (@MoscowTimes) August 9, 2024
The app allegedly violated Russian laws “necessary to prevent the use of the messenger for terrorist and extremist purposes.”https://t.co/b0xeU7gO4R
Signal has gained its reputation for being one of the most secure messaging platforms in the world due to its end-to-end encryption when sending and receiving messages between users. Signal is often used as a means of encrypted communication for many journalists, political dissidents, and other enemies of the state living in Russia and abroad.
Earlier Friday morning, thousands of Russian users began to report having issues with the app crashing, while Russian internet monitoring sites SBOY.RF and DownRadar.com both confirmed widespread outages.
“Hmm... We couldn't find the signal website,” DownRadar showed (translated from Russian) when Cybernews plugged Signal into its search bar. A DownRadar graph showed glitches happening for Signal users over the past 24-hour period.
Many users posting that they were able to access Signal by using a VPN or the messenger’s built-in ‘Censorship Circumvention’ feature, which allows users to connect to the app or desktop site using a proxy connection.
“If Signal is blocked in your country, use a proxy to get started with and continue using Signal. All traffic remains opaque to the proxy operator,” Signal Support states.
Users were also blocked from creating new accounts, with a ‘Service Error’ screen being displayed during the attempts, Reuters reported.
“Based on visitor requests and reports, today 09 August 2024 there are problems or failures with signal.com,” site monitor SBOY.RF said, tallying over 2500 user complaints, first at 5:00 a.m. and again at 9:00 a.m. – mostly in Moscow (47%) and in St.Petersburg (11%).
Roskomnadzor ramps up restrictions on Western apps
Its the second social media platform said to have been targeted by the Kremlin’s digital regulators this week.
The RKN, otherwise known by its official government agency name, The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media, is in charge of monitoring and controlling all media disseminated to the Russian people.
On Thursday, users in multiple regions across the nation reported being unable to access YouTube, according to the Russian digital advocacy group Roskomsvoboda.
Russian authorities warned last week that they could throttle access to the video platform due to “non-compliance” with Russian laws and YouTube’s blocking of over 200 channels run by content creators supportive of Kremlin policies.
The Moscow Times report on Friday said Russian tech insiders had told the independent news website Vyorstka that the RKN was expected to fully block YouTube, as well as WhatsApp, by “as early as September.”
Additionally last month, the government watchdog agency also forced the removal of dozens of VPNs from the Russian App Store, also over “non-compliance with local legal requirements.”
The law behind the VPN takedowns – Russian Federal Law No. 149-FZ, "On Information, Information Technologies and Protection" – is the same law cited by the RKN to blacklist numerous Western social media apps since the war with Ukraine began, including X, Facebook, Instagram, Discord, Snapchat, and more.
"This indicates precisely a blocking of the messenger in Russia and not a technical problem on the Signal side," Russian author Mikhail Klimarev told the Reuters news agency on Friday, before the RKN’s official announcement.
Klimarev, founder of “Internet Without Borders,” a series of conference and hackathon events that advocate against Russian digital aggression, said it was the first attempt by the Federation to block Signal.
The RKN in 2018 attempted to unsuccessfully block users from accessing Telegram, another encrypted messaging app frequently used by many pro-Russian hacktivist groups targeting Ukraine and Western allies.
Signal has not yet commented on the Russian restrictions.