Russia has taken yet another step towards restricting user communications within the boundaries. With the latest move, Russia blocked the communication app Viber, citing law violations, barring users from using the app.
After Other Apps And VPNs, Russia Has Blocked Viber Too
According to recent reports, Russia has blocked the messaging app Viber in the country, citing legal violations.
Sharing the details in a statement, the Russian watchdog Roskomnadzor explained that the application service failed to comply with numerous legal requests to remove criminal content.
Access to the Viber service is restricted due to the violation of the requirements of Russian legislation for organizers of information dissemination.
Viber is one of Russia’s most used messaging apps, with over 17 million unique users daily. That means this ban will affect the routine communications of 17 million users.
Regarding objectionable content, the agency made some serious allegations about Viber’s content moderation. That includes content involving everything from drug sales and terrorism to the distribution of misinformation. Viber’s ignorance seemingly compelled the region to restrict the app’s operations within the country.
Compliance with the requirements is necessary to prevent threats of using the messenger for terrorist and extremist purposes, recruiting citizens to commit them, selling drugs, as well as in connection with the posting of illegal information.
While the ban was recently implemented, Viber wasn’t a preferred communication method for Russia’s repressive regime even before. Moreover, the authorities didn’t want the app to become a means of spreading war-related information and pictures. Consequently, the country also fined the service 4 million Rubles last year, together with Telegram, which Viber had failed to pay. Moreover, the service was also slapped with another fine of 800,000 Rubles for publishing prohibited content.
According to TASS news agency, Viber is yet to pay a total fine of $17,402. Besides, in a statement to TASS, Anton Nemkin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications, confirmed that criminals often find Viber a convenient means to devise malicious strategies.
Foreign intelligence agencies can use Viber to recruit people, since this messenger allows anonymous and secure communication with potential candidates. Encryption of messages in Viber allows minimizing the risk of interception of correspondence, which makes this channel convenient for this kind of operations. In this case, teenagers most often become victims.
Blocking Viber isn’t Russia’s first strict action against a popular service. Earlier this year, Russia blocked the encrypted messaging app Signal, citing similar concerns. Before that, the country blocked several VPN service providers, citing security concerns. These efforts together indicate a more repressive state of citizens’ digital freedom in Russia.
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