Russian Lawmakers Propose Lifting Telegram Ban: Is State Hypocrisy Finally Over?

Members of the State Duma from the “A Just Russia” party, Fedot Tumusov and Dmitry Ionin, have submitted a bill to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev proposing to end the blocking of Telegram, according to Kommersant. The lawmakers argue that Telegram is now an official channel for government agencies to distribute information about the coronavirus during the state of heightened readiness or emergency. Telegram is used by the Moscow and Moscow Region government task forces to fight COVID-19, among others.

Tumusov and Ionin noted that most Russian users bypass the messenger’s block using various free tools: “Further declarative blocking of the messenger, therefore, harms not its development, but the prestige of state authority.”

The bill proposes to prohibit restricting access to resources used as “official services” for government agencies to distribute information during emergencies or periods of heightened readiness. The text of the bill states: “Access to information systems… is not restricted by the internet service provider in relation to those information distribution organizers whose service is the official service for government agencies and their officials to distribute and receive information about the current situation during a declared state of heightened readiness or emergency.”

The Ministry of Digital Development confirmed receipt of the lawmakers’ letter, and the document is currently under review. The press service of Roskomnadzor did not provide an immediate comment on the initiative.

Mixed Reactions from Officials

Alexander Khinshtein, head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology, and Communications (United Russia), expressed strong doubts about the bill’s prospects in parliament. He pointed out that Telegram is not the only platform used by authorities to inform the public about the coronavirus, and granting it special status would be illogical: “According to the logic of the bill’s authors, any messenger that distributes such information could be exempted from established legal requirements.”

“Tell me, who among you still doesn’t have Telegram?” asks Tumusov. “I think there are only a few. Over the past years, this messenger has become one of the key platforms in our country and, despite the ban, has doubled its user base (now over 20 million). We’ve gotten used to Telegram being officially banned but working perfectly well, and everyone was fine with it—until the situation became absurd. Now, during the pandemic, officials are officially informing us about the coronavirus situation through it.”

Tumusov reiterated the absurdity of the situation, since the Ministry of Digital Development communicates with Russians stranded abroad via Telegram and officially announces this in the media. Therefore, he argues: “…it’s time to admit: Telegram is an important means of delivering information, and the ban doesn’t work. The best solution for the state would be to lift it not only unofficially, but formally as well.”

Debate Over Legal Procedures

Deputy Anton Gorelkin, in his own Telegram channel, questioned how a bill could overturn a court decision to block Telegram: “Court decisions are appealed in higher courts, not in parliament. There’s no such possibility anywhere in the world. And if you dig deeper, it gets even more interesting. Yes, the court ordered Telegram to be blocked. But the decision wasn’t enforced—Telegram works. If the block wasn’t implemented, how can you demand its removal?”

He added that if lawmakers were seeking to repeal the Yarovaya Law, which would make blocking the messenger legally impossible, that would make sense. “But they demonstratively avoid touching the law. If they’re not against the law, why are they against its enforcement? As a PR move, their proposal worked—everyone’s talking about it. But it won’t go beyond PR. Maybe it’s part of a strategy by my friends at Yandex to lure people from Telegram to their new Yandex Messenger? Before that, Mail.ru tried with TamTam and the zombie revival of ICQ. Without Telegram’s ‘banned’ aura, it doesn’t work,” Gorelkin concluded.

Public and Expert Opinions

Unsurprisingly, news of some lawmakers’ intention to unblock the popular messenger stirred not only the “parliamentary crowd.” Experts and Runet users are actively discussing the topic, mostly agreeing that the authorities are ready to stop denying the reality around them, even if it’s virtual.

“First, Telegram advertises the official resources of the government’s coronavirus task force, and then a bill appears proposing to officially lift the Telegram ban,” writes Dmitry Kolezev, editor-in-chief of Znak.com. “Margarita Simonyan tweets that ‘the Telegram ban should be lifted, if only to avoid embarrassment’ (she once wrote that Telegram would definitely be blocked, but never mind).”

“The bill was prepared by two deputies from ‘A Just Russia,’” he continues. “Among them is my acquaintance, Sverdlovsk native Dmitry Ionin (hi, Dima). By the way, on his flyers, he encouraged citizens to follow his activities via the ‘banned Telegram.’ He has a Telegram channel: @deputat_ionin. And since the bill wasn’t prepared by United Russia members, its chances of passing aren’t great. Also, the fact that the deputies haven’t officially submitted the bill, but only sent it to the government and Ministry of Communications for review, suggests the initiative is essentially private.”

“But at the same time, the proposal is loud and may have been coordinated with at least some presidential administration staff. It will be telling whether Kremlin-adjacent media cover it, and in what tone. So far, the big three news agencies are silent; only liberal media have picked up the story,” Kolezev notes.

Stanislav Shakirov, technical director of RosKomSvoboda, commented: “This has been obvious to everyone for a long time! The state tries to block Telegram with one hand, but is forced to use it with the other—because that’s where the people are, because it’s a convenient service, and they can’t create one like it themselves… which, by the way, might even be a good thing. So if they really do unblock [Telegram], it will mark the end of a rather comical state hypocrisy that’s been going on for the past two years.”

The Telegram channel “Popyachechnaya” jokes: “There are such wonderful phrases: ‘further declarative blocking of the messenger… harms not its development, but the prestige of the state authorities of the Russian Federation.’ But how can you harm something that doesn’t exist?”

Philipp Kulin, creator and owner of “Escher II,” adds: “They propose an exception to the messenger’s block for cases when it’s an ‘official service for government agencies to distribute information about the current situation during a declared state of heightened readiness or emergency.’ I haven’t laughed this hard in a while (I’ve seen the document).”

Mikhail Klimaryov, executive director of the Internet Protection Society (OZI), expressed his radical view in a long and not entirely censored post, trying to explain what’s happening. In his opinion, neither among the deputies nor among the experts and advisors in the Duma are there people who understand telecom issues, and all their initiatives boil down to bans, intimidation, and budget spending “in response to the problem of ‘someone being wrong on the internet.’”

With new elections approaching—where, as he puts it, the bosses appoint rather than the electorate choosing—some deputies are trying to demonstrate not only loyalty but also some political instinct. “So, the instinct of the fluorodrosser drives these characters to ‘please the voter.’ And that’s very good. If the rats are stirring, it means the irritant hit the right spot. …I haven’t seen the bill, but the very fact of sending it to a ‘side ministry’ tells us it’s just a banal PR act. Of course, there will be no real bill. Just noise in the media.”

“…Soon, in just over a year, there will be elections. Not a single deputy who sat in this Duma should get a single vote from a healthy person. Not a single one. You get it, right? Including Ionin, of course,” Klimaryov concludes.

Background: The Telegram Ban

In April 2018, the Tagansky District Court of Moscow blocked Telegram at the request of Roskomnadzor because the messenger refused to provide the FSB with encryption keys to decrypt user messages. According to the FSB, Telegram was used, among other things, to organize the 2017 St. Petersburg metro terrorist attack.