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"if the app is banned in Russia then the government officials will entrust their communications to other countries' messengers"

Nice counter :)

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They could just use Matrix / Riot, since they are both fully open source and auditable on client and server.

Hell, I'd like the Russian gov't to start using Riot. Would definitely give them that security audit they need for trustability on their olm. Maybe you shouldn't trust a Russian state audit, but it just takes large users to motivate third parties to start auditing it.

You don't get it. They do not need secure messengers. They want mass surveillance. For secure communications within the government networks there exist other means.

No problem, they'll just ban all the other messengers. Line and KakaoTalk are already banned. There's nothing a dictatorship hates more than communications that cannot be eavesdropped on.

The perpetrators of the recent terrorist attack in Saint Petersburg Metro were using Telegram.

They also shopped in local stores. I don't think it's the reason to close them.

Good thing they weren't using whatever app Snowden's using (Signal?), that would've been awkward.

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