The news has surprised all Spaniards: the operators have received the order from the National Court for the Telegram service to be blocked in Spain. For now the problems are already being registered on the network and it is expected that access to the messaging tool will be generally blocked in the coming hours. But why?
Telegram may still work for you. But this should change, as confirmed by the order of the National Court, in the next few hours. Late on Friday, at the request of Judge Santiago Pedraz, the blocking of the famous application was ordered. The process should be completed in the next few hours and, at most, in a period of two days.
An unexpected crash
If the case has reached the hands of Judge Pedraz, it has been due to the lawsuit imposed, together, by a group of entities formed by Atresmedia, Mediaset España, EGEDA and Movistar Plus. However, it is very likely that this is not the first time that Telegram has been the target of this type of complaint. Taking into account the philosophy of the app and its content, it would be logical to imagine that this is not a unique case.
So what is the reason for the blockage? The official information that comes from the National Court specifies that, if they have made the decision to block the app, it has been because Telegram has not responded to their requests. The judge requested certain information from the team in charge of the tool and it seems that they have not even responded to the request. Therefore, and as a precautionary measure, the latter being something important, the judge has given the order that the service in Spain be blocked.
The actual situation
Therefore, it is true that the beginning of this complaint is found in the presence of copyrighted content circulating on Telegram that is the property of the complaining entities, but it does not seem to be the absolute reason for what happened. The blockade, as has been recorded in the press, is temporary, so it is possible that the situation will be resolved in the near future when Telegram provides the necessary information to the National Court.
In addition to this, the judge has mentioned that he needs more time to investigate the case. The situation, however, is complex, given that once the blockade by the operators comes into force it may not be lifted with the same level of speed. This would lead to millions of users who would not be able to access Telegram after a decision that, clearly, is unexpected.
At the end of the day, we must remember that Telegram, although it is known that it is a service in which there is no control and that is used for all types of activities, it is also used by professionals in their daily work. There are many uses that can be made of Telegram and not all of them are illegal. Hence, the situation has surprised the user community, especially due to the precedent it represents for other types of similar situations. However, it should be insisted that the temporary and precautionary blocking of Telegram finds its reason for being in the lack of response from Telegram and not in the complaint filed.
To give us an idea of what happened, the situation is not totally new if we look at the rest of the world. In Brazil, Telegram also did not respond to the judge’s requests in an investigation and the temporary blocking of the application was ordered, which was not lifted until three days later. In China it is a service that is permanently blocked, while in other countries, such as Germany, specific channels that did not comply with the standards have been blocked, at the request of the government.
For now, in Downdetector you can already see that there is some activity related to the block as you can see above. And on social networks like
