Telegram forgot to check its email and now it’s banned in Brazil.
Highlights--
Telegram is now suspended in Brazil, all because the company was checking the wrong email address.
One of the world's largest instant messaging social platforms was suspended by Brazil's Supreme Court because emails were either missed or left on read.
According to Telegram's founder and CEO Pavel Durov, it's all a giant mishap.
San Francisco: After the Brazilian Supreme Court ordered Apple and Google app stores to ban Telegram within the country for failing to comply with its order, its Founder and CEO Pavel Durov said on Saturday that it happened because the company was checking the wrong email address of the Supreme Court.
Telegram allegedly failed to prevent users from spreading disinformation as it's become a communications hub for President Jair Bolsonaro.
Telegram is now suspended in Brazil, all because the company was checking the wrong email address. Yep, you read that right!
"It seems that we had an issue with emails going between our telegram.org corporate addresses and the Brazilian Supreme Court," Durov said in a Telegram post.
The company says it’s now found those emails (implying that the old address did at least work, which makes it even more bizarre that the emails somehow got missed), and is trying to remedy the situation with the court.
Telegram allegedly failed to prevent users from spreading disinformation as it's become a communications hub for President Jair Bolsonaro.
It appears that Telegram has found those emails for now and is trying to soothe the situation. While the larger issue is about complying with local courts, the simpler issue is about missing emails.
"On behalf of our team, I apologize to the Brazilian Supreme Court for our negligence. We definitely could have done a better job," Durov said.
Telegram is now hoping that the court would take mercy on the app as it resolves all pending requests that were sent via email. "I am certain that once a reliable channel of communication is established, we’ll be able to efficiently process takedown requests for public channels that are illegal in Brazil," Durov added.
He requested the court to consider delaying its ruling for a few days at its discretion "to allow us to remedy the situation by appointing a representative in Brazil and setting up a framework to react to future pressing issues like this in an expedited manner".
"The last THREE weeks have been unprecedented for the world and for Telegram. Our content moderation team was flooded with requests from multiple parties," Durov said, mentioning how people are using the platform using Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
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This is why we need decentralized Web3 apps to eat things like Telegram. Nobody there to email, too many endpoints to effectively ban. Or this nonsense.
Brazilian law requires that all companies that operate there to also have an official local office address, so that they can be reached out. Telegram does not have that, so they were operating ilegally.
Attempting contact through email was already an exception that the judge was making for Telegram.
Did anyone bother to research this? Brazil was sending notifications to the general email address for Telegram, which receives thousands of emails per day. Telegram noticed that Brazil was doing this last month and when it complied with a Brazilian order in February, and Telegram requested Brazil send all further notices to a special email address to ensure they received prompt attention. Brazil did not do this and continued to use the general address that receives thousands of emails per day. This would be like you giving a creditor your new address and they continue sending bills to your old address, then when you discover and pay your bill late, they blame you.
Implying that Brazil, a nation of more than 200 million people, is not a real country seems somewhat strange.
It’s an annoying decision by the court, but the country is most definitely as real as anywhere you’re sitting right now.