MOSCOW, December 13. /TASS/. Total amount of fines the Russian authorities imposed on the Viber messenger over past two years has exceeded 1.8 million rubles ($17,402) and remains unpaid, Anton Nemkin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications, told TASS.
"The total amount of fines over the past two years has exceeded 1.8 million rubles, and they have not paid them yet. The messenger continues to ignore the Russian legislation and does not delete prohibited information, including information related to the special military operation," the deputy said.
Nemkin noted that fraudsters most often choose Viber for their schemes due to its wide popularity among retired people. The app allows exchanging messages, calls and multimedia content without the need to confirm identity through strict security systems, he explained.
"Moreover, foreign intelligence agencies can use Viber to recruit people, since this messenger allows anonymous and secure communication with potential candidates. Encryption of messages in Viber allows minimizing the risk of interception of correspondence, which makes this channel convenient for this kind of operations. In this case, teenagers most often become victims," Nemkin said.
In turn, Alexander Malkevich, a member of the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, told TASS that in case of Viber one can speak not just about failure to remove banned content, but about systemic issues with this service.
"Viber shows a chronic inability to comply with the requirements of the law, which looks like a strategy of conflict, not cooperation. But the main problem is that the messenger does not provide the proper level of control over the security of content and users," he noted.
In a conversation with TASS Denis Kuskov, CEO of the Telecom Daily information and analytical agency, noted that the average monthly use of the messenger is not high among Russians.
"The number of unique users per day in Russia for Viber is 1.7 million people, for the WhatsApp messenger (owned by the Meta corporation, the activities of which are banned in Russia) this figure is 8.1 million, and for Telegram it is 6.4 million," Kuskov said.
On December 13, Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor blocked the Viber messenger in the country for violating national law, the watchdog’s press service reported.
"Access to the Viber service has been restricted due to its failure to comply with legal requirements for information dissemination platforms. These measures are necessary to prevent the threat of the messenger being used for terrorist and extremist activities, recruiting citizens to commit them, selling drugs, as well as in connection with the publication of illegal information," the statement says.