The messaging service violated anti-terrorism laws and was easily exploited by scammers, officials said
Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor (RKN) has blocked access to popular instant messaging service Viber, citing multiple failures to remove criminal content.
The messenger has 17 million unique daily users in Russia, according to tech news website Telecom Daily.
In its statement on Friday, RKN said that the access to Viber “has been restricted” due to the violations of national laws aimed at preventing the use of the messenger for committing “terrorist and extremist” crimes, drug dealing, and disseminating “unlawful information.”
Anton Nemkin, a member of the State Duma who sits on the parliamentary information policy and communications committee, told news agency TASS that Viber’s owners have failed to pay 1.8 million rubles ($17,230) in fines and “continue to ignore Russian laws.” He added that Viber “doesn’t delete illegal information,” including information related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Nemkin said that the messenger is popular with scammers who target older people. He claimed “foreign intelligence services” could exploit Viber as a recruitment tool for potential spies.
Elina Sidorenko, who runs the online safety NGO ‘Bely Internet’ (White Internet) and is a member of the presidential Human Rights Council, told newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda that Russians have lost 5 billion rubles ($47.8 million) to Viber scammers. “Viber didn’t protect its users, didn’t want to cooperate [with the authorities],” she said.
Moscow has cracked down on social media platforms in recent years, citing persistent violations of national laws by hosting illegal content, such as desinformation, hate speech, and promotion of “extremist” activities.
In 2022, the authorities banned access to X (formerly Twitter) and designated Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, as an “extremist organization,” for refusal to take down criminal content.
Viber was founded in 2010 by Igor Magazinnik, who emigrated from Russia to Israel at 16, and Israeli-American entrepreneur Marco Talmon. The company was bought by the Japanese tech giant Rakuten in 2014.
