According to the specialist on cybersecurity Aapo Söderberg, the translation staff of the Russian Telegram messenger in Finland can become a method of political pressure by Russia.
Earlier, Russian media reported that the messenger Telegram transferred all of its employees from St. Petersburg to Finland. As the reason mentioned pressure from Russian officials, who demanded to provide the necessary information about the traffic of messenger and transfer information, if necessary, including to officials.
This app is actively used by representatives of the opposition in the country.
Besides the political opposition of the application Telegram is also used by those who need the freedom of correspondence without specifying personal data.
The Russian security service, the FSB reported that, for example, ISIS (a terrorist organization banned in Russia — approx. lane) Telegram uses for propaganda. At the end of June, the FSB announced that the organizers of terrorist acts in St. Petersburg also enjoyed this app.
According to Söderberg, Russia created around the application image active supporter of terrorism that could serve as an instrument of political pressure on Finland.
“Claiming that Finland supports terrorist activities, Russia receives the arguments against Finland. It is likely that in this case, the Russian media will be able to use it against us,” says Soderberg.
According to him, it is also possible that in this way Russia is preparing to increase its information influence in Finland.
“Perhaps Russia will tell its citizens, so the Western countries support terrorism,” says Soderberg.
As an example of such practices on the part of Russia Soderberg leads an incident that occurred in 2013, with Michael stursa (Mikael Storsjö) and its website “Kavkaz-center”. Russia wanted to add the Creator of “Kavkaz-center” storse in the sanctions list of the UN Security Council, which lists persons associated with “al-Qaeda” (the terrorist organization banned in Russia — approx.ed.).
Trying to attract Finnish customers
Political pressures and the move of staff Telegram to another country can be a kind of advertising and a guarantee that the application — an impeccable reputation.
“It is possible, in fact Finns are trying to make a new app users,” says Seeberg.
Telegram protects your traffic by using self-developed method, which drew criticism from the experts. Say already now that the FSB has access to at least some part of the data messenger.
This is not the first time the founder of the app Telegram, Pavel Durov faced by Russian officials.
Before the advent of the app Telegram, Durov created together with his brother Nicholas most popular in Russia social network “Vkontakte”. The brothers, however, had to abandon rights to it.
Then Durov said that the security service of Russia FSB demanded from him the personal data of the users “Vkontakte”.
In the end, “Vkontakte” passed into the hands of those close to Vladimir Putin, namely, under the control of the President Alisher Usmanov.
Usmanov, one of the richest people in the country, owns the Internet portal Mail.ru and the second largest cellular operator “MegaFon”.
Pavel Durov left Russia in 2014. He and the state of the app Telegram regularly change their location.
