Security News > 2022 > March > Telegram banned by Brazilian Supreme Court over missed emails
Brazilian Supreme Federal Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes banned Telegram on Friday from operating in the country and asked the National Telecommunications Agency to notify internet providers to block the messaging app within five days.
Although Telegram complied with some court orders to block accounts used to spread disinformation on its platform, the messaging platform failed to comply with points of the Court's decision, including providing registration information for the blocked accounts to Justice.
"The disregard for Brazilian legislation and the repeated failure to comply with numerous judicial decisions by Telegram [.] including those emanating from the Federal Supreme Court - is a circumstance completely incompatible with the current constitutional order, in addition to contradicting expressly legal provision," Moraes explained in the decision.
After the Brazilian Supreme Court decided to block the messaging app, founder and CEO Pavel Durov said that Telegram is to blame and pinned the failure to comply with the Court's orders on "Miscommunication" and missed emails.
"It seems that we had an issue with emails going between our telegram.org corporate addresses and the Brazilian Supreme Court. As a result of this miscommunication, the Court ruled to ban Telegram for being unresponsive," Durov explained.
Durov also asked the Court to delay its ruling for at least a few days until Telegram appoints a representative in Brazil to expedite similar issues in the future and allow the tens of millions of Brazilian Telegram users to stay in touch with their friends and family.