Messenger service: Telegram block suspended in Spain

The temporary blocking of the Telegram messenger service ordered by a judge in Spain on Sunday will not initially come into force. Judge Santiago Pedraz of the National Court of Justice in Madrid overruled his own order, the court announced. Pedraz therefore first wants to wait for a report that he has commissioned the Commissioner General for Intelligence to prepare.

Pedraz ordered the blocking of the messenger service after several media companies filed a lawsuit against Telegram . They accuse Telegram of violating copyright protection regulations.

According to his own statements, the judge ordered the blocking after he had repeatedly unsuccessfully requested administrative assistance from the authorities in the British Virgin Islands, where Telegram is registered. They did not cooperate in clarifying the identities of the owners of Telegram accounts from which copyrighted content was distributed.

Telegram remained accessible despite the ordered blocking

Despite the order, Telegram was always available in Spain. Spanish consumer advocates criticized the measure as disproportionate. However, country blocks like the one ordered by Pedraz can be easily bypassed with protected network connections (VPN).

According to a report in the Spanish newspaper El País, Telegram regularly refuses to provide information to authorities. The service is popular, among other things, because it protects the identity of its users more than larger competitors such as Messenger from Facebook or WhatsApp, which is also owned by the US group. Telegram has several million users in Spain.

Because of the way it works, Telegram is a preferred service for dissidents in dictatorships and authoritarian countries. For the same reason, there are also channels with extremist and criminal content on Telegram. According to its own information, the service has more than 700 million monthly active users worldwide.

The temporary blocking of the Telegram messenger service ordered by a judge in Spain on Sunday will not initially come into force. Judge Santiago Pedraz of the National Court of Justice in Madrid overruled his own order, the court announced. Pedraz therefore first wants to wait for a report that he has commissioned the Commissioner General for Intelligence to prepare.

Pedraz ordered the blocking of the messenger service after several media companies filed a lawsuit against Telegram . They accuse Telegram of violating copyright protection regulations.

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