Viber responded to the blocking of the messenger in the so-called "DNR" and "LNR"

By: Elena Shcherban | 05.06.2022, 12:40

Since June 3, the terrorist organizations "DPR" and "LPR" announced the blocking of the Viber messenger in the occupied territories of Donbass.

What's happening?

The so-called “LPR” called the blocking “a response to the repeated increasing use of the service as part of the enemy’s military infrastructure in order to obtain geolocation data and find our critical military-civilian infrastructure.” And the DPR said that Viber is allegedly used “to distribute malware, on the basis of which real strikes are inflicted and the location of critical civilian and military infrastructure is revealed.” How this is done, of course, was not explained there.

Rakuten Viber reacted to the blocking of the messenger:

“Yesterday we learned about the decision of the authorities of the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to block Viber on the territory of Donbass. We are categorically against any blocking of our service. This decision can only be perceived as another attempt to ban sources of truthful information and limit the safe communication of people on Viber.

The company also emphasized that free and safe communication is a basic and vital human right.

“Millions of people communicate with their loved ones through Viber. We do our best to keep people connected. All correspondence in Viber is fully encrypted by default, now the service is working without interruption for all our users, ”says Rakuten Viber in a comment.

Source: Interfax-Ukraine

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