Roskomnadzor blocked Viber

“Execution [требований] “It is necessary to avoid threats to use the messenger for terrorist and extremist purposes, recruit citizens to commit them, sell drugs and publish illegal information,” the message says.

Over the past two years, the amount of fines imposed on Viber exceeded 1.8 million rubles, Anton Nemkin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, told TASS. He noted that they have not yet been paid and that the courier’s address ignores Russian laws and does not delete prohibited information, including information about the military operation.

In June 2023, the court fined the service 1 million rubles for inaccurate data on the SVO, and in March 2024 – 800 thousand rubles for failure to remove content prohibited in the country. Both fines were imposed under Part 2 of Article 13.41 of the Administrative Code (violation of the procedure for restricting access to information, access to which is subject to restrictions in accordance with the law).

According to Mediascope data from November 2024, Viber is third in popularity among Russian users, behind WhatsApp and Telegram. Viber reaches 26% of the country’s population every month and, on average, 14% of Russians use it every day.

On December 1, massive technical problems were reported on Viber. On that day, the number of complaints about the operation of the messenger in Russia reached almost 5 thousand, according to information from the Sboy.RF portal.

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