Both Russia and Venezuela have blocked access to the encrypted messaging app Signal. .
The Russian intelligence service has spread the news about the blocking of the Signal app in Russia. The Russian telecommunications regulator Roskomnadzor has restricted the app due to “violations of the requirements of Russian legislation, the fulfillment of which is necessary to prevent the use of the messenger for terrorist and extremist purposes,” the Russian report says.
The Cybersecurity Tracker reported on Friday that Russia has restricted access to Signal “on most internet providers.” NetBlocks also noted that the app “remains usable if the ‘censorship bypass’ option is enabled in Signal settings,” which applies to users whose messages have been blocked in both regions.
The blocking of Signal in Venezuela came in the long shadow of the disputed results of the country’s presidential election in late July. The Venezuelan electoral authority declared President Nicolás Maduro the winner without publishing any evidence of his victory, which according to the .
Both regions have blocked access to similar social media apps, possibly to silence dissent. For example, the US government today claimed for a period of ten days that company owner Elon Musk was stirring up hatred and had “violated” his social network’s rules. also reported a “mass YouTube outage” in Russia on Thursday.
