Roskomnadzor chief Zharov: No one negotiated with me replacement of Telegram with another messenger
MOSCOW. April 18 (Interfax) - Chief of Russia's telecommunications watchdog Roskomnadzor Alexander Zharov has denied that the blocking of Telegram may be connected to the division of the market to replace this messenger with a different one.
"I have not heard about preferences of the messenger of the Mail.ru company or some others anywhere except on the Internet. No one has conducted any negotiations with me on this matter," Zharov said in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper on Wednesday.
"It is impossible to make users instantly stop using a service to which they are accustomed, for example, Telegram, and suggest that they immediately go to TamTam or somewhere else," he said.
"I think they are talking about TamTam due to some characteristics: one can also create channels there, both messengers' interfaces are undoubtedly similar. And there is only one reason for drawing parallels and creating conspirological theories for the post-Telegram period: Mr. Durov had a relation to both Mail.ru and Telegram. I don't see any other issues here," Zharov said.