I got an e-mail from the Russian Government for publishing Telegram channels in a website
On 8/11/2022 we received emails from the Roskomnadzor intimating us to remove a link to a Telegram channel from our website. Referring to the Federal Law of 28 December 2012 No.272-FZ "On Sanctions for Individuals Violating Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms of the Citizens of the Russian Federation".
We immediately verified the veracity of the e-mails, both of which came from a government domain.
The type of violation associated with the webpage was as follows: "contains appeals to mass riots, extremist activities, participating in mass (public) events held in violation of the established order unreliable socially significant information disseminated under the resemblance of reliable messages, which creates a threat of harming life and (or) the health of citizens, property, as well as the threat of mass public disorder of the threat to sabotage livelihood facilities, transport or social infrastructure, credit institutions, energy facilities, industry or communications; information materials of foreign or international non-governmental organisations whose activities were considered to be undesirable in the territory of the Russian Federation"
The Telegram channel in question merely publishes news about the progress of the war in Ukraine, as an independent media outlet operating on Ukrainian territory.
We therefore did not comply with the request, which was also forwarded to our CDN provider Cloudflare. We were given a simple ultimatum by Roskomnadzor: within 24 hours, we were to remove the page from their website.
Our servers are in Europe and we comply with European laws. Our democratic principles and values protect freedom of expression and we also guarantee access to information for Russian citizens who want to know the real state of the war in Ukraine.
The European Commission has already condemned this censorship operation by Moscow. The Russian government implements an ISP blocklist of all independent media and forces journalists to flee the country.
The Roskomnadzor actually blocked our site within the Russian Federation via ISP after 24 hours. Our service TelegramDB.org makes the groups available on Telegram more findable on Google by indexing them.
Fortunately, however, we continue to receive visits from Russian citizens who want to inform themselves by circumventing the blocks imposed. Telegram is currently not blocked in Russia and is one of the most used information channels by Russian citizens to inform themselves about the real state of the war in Ukraine.
We will continue to work on improving our service, ensuring access to useful information on Telegram for as many people around the world as possible.
We wanted to inform you of this event, which surprised us, but not worried as we live in democratic countries.
On 8/11/2022 we received emails from the Roskomnadzor intimating us to remove a link to a Telegram channel from our website. Referring to the Federal Law of 28 December 2012 No.272-FZ "On Sanctions for Individuals Violating Fundamental Human Rights and Freedoms of the Citizens of the Russian Federation".
We immediately verified the veracity of the e-mails, both of which came from a government domain.
The type of violation associated with the webpage was as follows: "contains appeals to mass riots, extremist activities, participating in mass (public) events held in violation of the established order unreliable socially significant information disseminated under the resemblance of reliable messages, which creates a threat of harming life and (or) the health of citizens, property, as well as the threat of mass public disorder of the threat to sabotage livelihood facilities, transport or social infrastructure, credit institutions, energy facilities, industry or communications; information materials of foreign or international non-governmental organisations whose activities were considered to be undesirable in the territory of the Russian Federation"
The Telegram channel in question merely publishes news about the progress of the war in Ukraine, as an independent media outlet operating on Ukrainian territory.
We therefore did not comply with the request, which was also forwarded to our CDN provider Cloudflare. We were given a simple ultimatum by Roskomnadzor: within 24 hours, we were to remove the page from their website.
Our servers are in Europe and we comply with European laws. Our democratic principles and values protect freedom of expression and we also guarantee access to information for Russian citizens who want to know the real state of the war in Ukraine.
The European Commission has already condemned this censorship operation by Moscow. The Russian government implements an ISP blocklist of all independent media and forces journalists to flee the country.
The Roskomnadzor actually blocked our site within the Russian Federation via ISP after 24 hours. Our service TelegramDB.org makes the groups available on Telegram more findable on Google by indexing them.
Fortunately, however, we continue to receive visits from Russian citizens who want to inform themselves by circumventing the blocks imposed. Telegram is currently not blocked in Russia and is one of the most used information channels by Russian citizens to inform themselves about the real state of the war in Ukraine.
We will continue to work on improving our service, ensuring access to useful information on Telegram for as many people around the world as possible.
We wanted to inform you of this event, which surprised us, but not worried as we live in democratic countries.
Thank you for your attention and Slava Ukraïni!
Screenshot of the e-mail: https://imgur.com/a/ykzmVaF