As Rakuten Viber representatives told Channel 24, the messenger team continues to do everything possible to keep the app working across Ukraine, including where they’re trying to block it.

Why are invaders blocking Viber?

We will remind, on Tuesday, July 5, it became known that the Viber messenger stopped working properly on the territory of the Kherson region. Users complained about the blocking of access to the program by the occupation authorities. It was stated that access to Viber is possible only using a VPN.

Currently, the functioning of the messenger has been restored. It is worth noting that these are not the first difficulties in the functioning of the service faced by the company. Previously, the invaders tried to block access to the messenger in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. This is explained by the alleged use of Viber “for the distribution of malicious programs, where real attacks are carried out and the location of critical civilian and military infrastructure is exposed.”

Rakuten Viber emphasizes that any attempt to limit the functioning of the service is aimed at limiting the ability of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians to communicate with their families, their access to real information sources and critical services in government agencies and Ukrainian mass media channels, such as banking.

Blocking social networks in Russia: briefly

• We would like to add that on the territory of Russia, Roskomnadzor has blocked the Facebook social network from March 4th. The Kremlin has described Meta as an “extremist organisation”.
• About the ban on Facebook, “Millions of ordinary Russians found themselves cut off from reliable information, communication with relatives and family – in silence, without the opportunity to express their opinions.
• Also other social networks are blocked. In particular, Roskomnadzor officially included Instagram in the registry of banned sites in Russia.
• After the company Meta was deemed extremist, local IT professionals in Russia rushed to create their own version of Instagram. One of them is Rossgram. However, it turned out that the creators of the project used the 2018 PHP script PixelPhoto, which is sold for free for $ 69, to start a new social network.