Russian users get locked out of Telegram and WhatsApp as Moscow intensifies internet censorship
Russia’s communications watchdog Roskomnadzor said messaging services Telegram and WhatsApp suffered a brief major outage in Russia on Wednesday, attributing it to a cyberattack.
Users from both platforms reported a spike in server connection issues starting around 2 p.m. Moscow time (1100 GMT), according to monitoring sites.
Russia’s communications watchdog said the “attack” that caused “large-scale disruption” to app services was repelled within an hour and the service was back to normal.
The regulator blamed the outage on a DDoS cyberattack targeting telecom operators in Russia.
A DDoS attack is designed to force a website to go offline by loading it with malicious internet traffic.
The outages come as human rights groups accuse Moscow of tightening internet censorship, blocking websites that carry independent information about the conflict in Ukraine.
Russia designated WhatsApp parent company Meta as “extremist” in 2022, and blocked access to Meta’s Instagram and Facebook sites, as the Kremlin tightens its control over the social media space.
Authorities have also threatened to block popular video-sharing site YouTube, with users reporting difficulties accessing the site in Russia earlier this month.
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