National Court of Spain Blocks Telegram Messenger, Founded by Russian

A national court has ordered the suspension of the Telegram service in Spain, El Pais reports, citing a court source. 

National Court Judge Santiago Pedras ordered a temporary suspension of the Telegram instant messaging app this Friday evening following a complaint filed by Mediaset, Atresmedia and Movistar Plus regarding the alleged unauthorised use of copyrighted audiovisual content.

According to El Pais, the president of the Central Instructional Court No. 5 issued the decision as part of a request for a precautionary measure that the audiovisual companies claimed had paralysed the messaging app during the investigation.

At the time of the court's decision, the app remained operational. The blocking by the National Court is expected to be lifted in a few hours after the court's ruling is published. 

According to the DownDetector platform, some users reported problems accessing the app last night in Spain.

Telegram was founded ten years ago by two Russian brothers (Nikolai and Pavel Durov). It is a messaging app that has become popular as an alternative to WhatsApp and the Meta app. 

Telegram allows the distribution of unverified content that is virtually uncensored. The content that was shared, or the type of activities that were carried out, caused conflict groups to flourish. Messages in the app are end-to-end encrypted, so only the sender and the recipient have access to the content.

But open groups and broadcast channels allow users to publicly share messages and files of all kinds. 

Previously, the messaging platform was removed from app stores or suspended in court for allowing the sharing of illegal content. 

Several years ago, it disappeared from the Apple App Store due to a child pornography case, and Brazil suspended the service because the company of Russian businessmen did not cooperate with an investigation into neo-Nazi groups.

The app has also had problems in the past due to the activities of far-right groups, the distribution of violent content, drug trafficking and copyright infringement, which is exactly what the case before the National Court was about.

In 2019, Telegram blocked several channels that distributed pirated books, newspapers and magazines after working with organisations in the sector. A year later, the platform was flagged by the European Union for distributing content that was not allowed to be downloaded or broadcast.

A variety of illegal or extremist organisations have been known to use the app. For example, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack in Moscow this Friday on its Telegram channel.