A Kharkiv court on Feb. 24 ordered internet providers to block access to four pro-Kremlin Telegram channels, even though only Telegram itself has the power to do that.
Telegram channels “Resident”, “Legitimnyi” (Legitimate), “Cartel”, and “Spletnica” (gossip girl) are part of a large-scale intelligence network that engaged in subversive and intelligence-gathering activities in Ukraine at the request of Russia’s special services, according to the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU.)
The Kharkiv court’s bizarre ruling requested providers to cut all access to these channels.
But internet providers have no way to access user data within an app or platform, experts say. Providers can see if an individual uses Telegram, but they can’t get into their private messages, bots, or public channels. All internet providers can do is cut access to the app entirely.
“The only thing they can do is somehow pressure Telegram’s leadership, try proving to them that these channels pose a terrorist threat”, Pavlo Belousov, an expert at the DSS380 School of Digital Security told the Kyiv Post. “Users can send complaints, but the outsiders can’t do anything.”
A messenger for terrorists?
Telegram is a popular messaging app that has over 500 million users worldwide.
Over the years, it has come under scrutiny for its lax security measures.
Many accused the platform of giving terrorists a space to communicate and it was even described as a “jihadi messaging app” by the Daily Mirror, a British newspaper.
The company denied these allegations, saying that it values the privacy of its users and will not carry out politically-motivated censorship.
“I think that privacy and our right to privacy are more important than our fear of bad things happening, like terrorism,” the founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, said at a conference in San Francisco.
Telegram’s Terms of Service, which describe the content that is prohibited on the platform, are surprisingly terse compared to those of tech giants like Facebook, which has over 18 pages of community guidelines.
Telegram’s website prohibits spamming or scamming other users, promoting violence and posting illegal pornographic content “on publicly viewable Telegram channels, bots, etc.,” but does not define violence or pornography.
It also does not explicitly mention terrorism.
The rest of the company’s rulebook is confidential, Belousov said.
Banning Telegram
Experts say internet providers can’t selectively cut access to the Kremlin’s Telegram channels.
What they can theoretically do is block Telegram completely, as they’ve done with four leading Russian platforms – VKontakte, Odnoklasniki (Classmates), Mail.Ru and Yandex.
In 2017, ex-President Petro Poroshenko imposed sanctions on over 400 Russian companies, including VKontakte, Yandex and Mail.ru, which were among the five most popular websites in Ukraine at the time.
The government said Russian platforms threatened Ukraine’s national security because of their rampant propaganda and access to the user data of over 24 million Ukrainians who used the websites.
Since then, internet providers and mobile operators have restricted access to many Russian websites.
But blocking Telegram is not as simple, Belousov said.
Mobile applications and websites are distributed differently. Since Telegram is not available as a website, blocking it in Ukraine would require Apple and Android to delete it from their app stores.
This works in China, where certain casino apps are not available in the Apple Store because of Chinese laws that prohibit gambling.
Unlike Ukraine, China controls a huge share of the global market, which forces tech companies to heed its regulations. Search engines often agree to filter their search results at the request of the Chinese Communist Party just to stay in the game.
In Ukraine, that level of censorship seems impossible.
“We as a market are not interesting for (tech companies), they won’t be willing to incur reputational losses due to (Telegram) removal,” Belousov says.
Russian trace
According to the SBU, the Telegram channels that the Kharkiv court wants to ban are among 12 that have links to Russian special services.
These dozen channels are a part of a massive intelligence network created by the Russian military. The network is partially coordinated by Ukrainian pro-Kremlin activists from Odesa and Kharkiv who now reside in Russia, according to the SBU.
Russia’s special services enlisted Ukrainians to manage a network of Telegram channels to destabilize the socio-political and socio-economic situation in Ukraine.
The SBU established that the “general manager” of the intelligence network is an Odesa resident who organized the “Anti-Maidan” riots during the EuroMaidan Revolution, which toppled Ukraine’s ex-President Viktor Yanukovich.
“Their key task was to discredit public authorities, influence public policy, artificially create social tension and a protest mood among citizens,” SBU says.
“It’s obvious that these channels pushed Russian narratives, spread disinformation… they could employ many ways of influencing the public consciousness,” former Deputy Minister of Information Policy of Ukraine Tetiana Popova told the Kyiv Post.
She is unsure of just how much the SBU can do to prevent Russian propaganda on Telegram.
“Russians will continue trying to exert influence, so this is just a time win,” Popova said. “This will continue happening… so we can’t just do nothing. We will have to identify new methods that Russians will use against us and figure out how to confront them.”
