Telegram blames shutdown in Brazil on missing emails

It seems that the decision of the Supreme Federal Court of Brazil to disable Telegram in the country, at least according to Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, the result of some missed emails.

Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes has ruled that Telegram must be shut down because the company “has never refused to abide by court orders to freeze accounts that spread disinformation or respect the country’s laws,” Reuters said.

“It seems we have a problem with emails between our Telegram.org corporate addresses and the Brazilian Supreme Court,” Durov said on his public Telegram channel. “As a result of this miscommunication, the court decided to ban Telegram from failing to respond.”

Durov explains:

We complied with an earlier court decision in late February and responded with a suggestion to send future rejection requests to a committed email address. Unfortunately, our reply must have been lost because the court used the old general email address to make further attempts to reach us. As a result, we missed his decision in early March, which included a follow-up takedown request. Fortunately, we have now found and processed it, today delivering another report to the court.

Durov also notes that “the last 3 weeks have been unclear to the world and to Telegram.” This is because the messaging platform is popular both in Ukraine and in Russia – especially now that the latter country has cracked on Facebook and Twitter.

“Because tens of millions of Brazilians rely on telegrams to communicate with family, friends and colleagues,” Durov said, “by raising an appointment. To set up representatives in Brazil in a framework to respond quickly to future urgent issues such as these.”

Moraes has given Apple, Google and phone operators in Brazil until March 23 to block access to the telegram. So far, it does not appear that Durov’s request to delay the shutdown – or to cancel it now that Telegram is reviewing his emails again – has convinced Moraes to change his sentence.