The government of India has banned the Telegram app over exam question paper leaks and cheating. On the instructions of the Indian government, major telecom companies have started blocking the app, while Google Play Store and Apple App Store have also removed it from their respective platforms in India.
Following the government’s instructions, telecom companies such as Jio, Airtel, and Vodafone have started blocking Telegram on their networks. In addition, Telegram has been instructed to disable its message editing feature on June 30. According to officials, fraudsters were abusing this feature to create false evidence that the question paper had already been released by inserting new question paper files into old messages.
Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov has strongly criticized the Indian government’s move. He said that this temporary ban has unnecessarily punished more than 150 million ordinary users living in India. He claims that closing the app will not stop the problem, and those who leak question papers will easily move to other apps.
Legal and cyber experts have also raised questions about the ban. Some have said that a complete ban on the app, based on misuse, is not legally justified and would seriously affect freedom of expression, access to information, and commercial communications.
