Telegram Is Banned in India, Deleted from App Stores, Suffered a Global Outage
The Indian government ordered a temporary ban on Telegram due to mass leaks of NEET-UG exam questions. However, a local telecom‘s attempt to restrict access led to interceptions far beyond the country. Editors at @tginfo explain how local censorship turned into a global outage.
What Happened in India
The formal reason for the ban was leaked questions for the national medical exam in Telegram channels. Currently, the official Telegram client has been removed from the Indian App Store and Google Play storefronts.
Pavel Durov points out that this move punishes 150 million users in India, while the leaks simply migrated to a different app, and that Telegram cooperated with regulators by deleting “hundreds of channels sharing leaked exam materials and related scams in India”. The CEO also adds that the messenger team has “been making the ‘edited’ label more visible to prevent backdating scams”, although it is not clear whether this change hasn't shipped yet or is some local change that our editors couldn‘t confirm independently. The “edited” indicator changes are said to be done to fight backdating scams.
For context, India is one of the biggest Telegram markets. The Indian government tried to pressure Telegram before: in 2022, a court demanded the disclosure of pirate channel owners‘ personal data. At that time, Telegram only complied on paper, stating that it didn‘t store the requested data on its servers. It is clear that this time the government is trying to act with more force.
From a Local Ban to a Global Outage
Trying to restrict Telegram inside the country, an Indian telecom company used a BGP routing hijacking trick.
• The Internet is made up of many interconnected networks that tell each other the data paths using the BGP protocol.
• An Indian telecom company announced to the whole world that it owns Telegram's IP addresses, forcing part of the global traffic to be sent through the false route, which blocks access to the messenger.
• Since many service providers around the world still don‘t verify the authenticity of the routes they receive, the false routes spread around the globe.
As a result, connectivity issues could be observed even outside India, including regions like the UAE. Similar incidents happened before: for example, in 2023, the Iraqi government used a similar trick to ban Telegram.
Industry experts point out that the Indian telecom even got into a brief network war with Telegram, in which one company tried to overwrite the opponent‘s routing directions. Pavel Durov announced that Reliance stopped malicious routing four hours after his post.
Erroneous Accusations Against Meta Trying to Blame for All Their Problems
Pavel Durov called the service provider‘s actions intentional sabotage and assumed that it might be part of the competitive war that WhatsApp is leading against Telegram, based on a claim that Reliance is partially owned by Meta (parent company of WhatsApp and Facebook).
Despite this, community and media research shows that Pavel Durov confused two companies. The network system that was hijacking the traffic is owned by Reliance Communications, an old telecom asset midway through bankruptcy, while Meta invested in a completely unrelated company — Jio Platforms (which also owns Reliance Jio, a large Indian service provider).
The theory about WhatsApp‘s corporate conspiracy couldn‘t be backed by any technical data. It is likely that the global traffic hijacking was caused by incompetence among the engineers at the Indian company responsible for configuring the hardware to block Telegram. It is not the first time that Pavel Durov has publicly accused WhatsApp of attacking Telegram, explaining unfavorable events with conspiracy theories.
#India #censorship #outages
The Indian government ordered a temporary ban on Telegram due to mass leaks of NEET-UG exam questions. However, a local telecom‘s attempt to restrict access led to interceptions far beyond the country. Editors at @tginfo explain how local censorship turned into a global outage.
What Happened in India
The formal reason for the ban was leaked questions for the national medical exam in Telegram channels. Currently, the official Telegram client has been removed from the Indian App Store and Google Play storefronts.
Pavel Durov points out that this move punishes 150 million users in India, while the leaks simply migrated to a different app, and that Telegram cooperated with regulators by deleting “hundreds of channels sharing leaked exam materials and related scams in India”. The CEO also adds that the messenger team has “been making the ‘edited’ label more visible to prevent backdating scams”, although it is not clear whether this change hasn't shipped yet or is some local change that our editors couldn‘t confirm independently. The “edited” indicator changes are said to be done to fight backdating scams.
For context, India is one of the biggest Telegram markets. The Indian government tried to pressure Telegram before: in 2022, a court demanded the disclosure of pirate channel owners‘ personal data. At that time, Telegram only complied on paper, stating that it didn‘t store the requested data on its servers. It is clear that this time the government is trying to act with more force.
From a Local Ban to a Global Outage
Trying to restrict Telegram inside the country, an Indian telecom company used a BGP routing hijacking trick.
• The Internet is made up of many interconnected networks that tell each other the data paths using the BGP protocol.
• An Indian telecom company announced to the whole world that it owns Telegram's IP addresses, forcing part of the global traffic to be sent through the false route, which blocks access to the messenger.
• Since many service providers around the world still don‘t verify the authenticity of the routes they receive, the false routes spread around the globe.
As a result, connectivity issues could be observed even outside India, including regions like the UAE. Similar incidents happened before: for example, in 2023, the Iraqi government used a similar trick to ban Telegram.
Industry experts point out that the Indian telecom even got into a brief network war with Telegram, in which one company tried to overwrite the opponent‘s routing directions. Pavel Durov announced that Reliance stopped malicious routing four hours after his post.
Erroneous Accusations Against Meta Trying to Blame for All Their Problems
Pavel Durov called the service provider‘s actions intentional sabotage and assumed that it might be part of the competitive war that WhatsApp is leading against Telegram, based on a claim that Reliance is partially owned by Meta (parent company of WhatsApp and Facebook).
Despite this, community and media research shows that Pavel Durov confused two companies. The network system that was hijacking the traffic is owned by Reliance Communications, an old telecom asset midway through bankruptcy, while Meta invested in a completely unrelated company — Jio Platforms (which also owns Reliance Jio, a large Indian service provider).
The theory about WhatsApp‘s corporate conspiracy couldn‘t be backed by any technical data. It is likely that the global traffic hijacking was caused by incompetence among the engineers at the Indian company responsible for configuring the hardware to block Telegram. It is not the first time that Pavel Durov has publicly accused WhatsApp of attacking Telegram, explaining unfavorable events with conspiracy theories.
#India #censorship #outages
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The .me registry has blocked the t.me domain
UPD July 14, 13:00 UTC: The domain was restored.
Telegram users worldwide have encountered an outage: short t.me links have stopped opening in regular browsers. The problem affects users in the entire world.
At the same time, within the mobile and desktop Telegram clients themselves, clicks on links are processed correctly, and redirects work without any problems. As a temporary alternative for posting on external resources, you can use telegram.me links.
Technical details
At the moment, the exact causes of the incident remain unknown.
According to WHOIS data, the t.me domain has been completely removed from the DNS zone by the administration of the .me domain registry.
This status is set not by the registrar (GoDaddy), but directly by the main operator of the domain zone — the Montenegrin company doMEn d.o.o., which manages the entire
#outages #bans
UPD July 14, 13:00 UTC: The domain was restored.
Telegram users worldwide have encountered an outage: short t.me links have stopped opening in regular browsers. The problem affects users in the entire world.
At the same time, within the mobile and desktop Telegram clients themselves, clicks on links are processed correctly, and redirects work without any problems. As a temporary alternative for posting on external resources, you can use telegram.me links.
Technical details
At the moment, the exact causes of the incident remain unknown.
According to WHOIS data, the t.me domain has been completely removed from the DNS zone by the administration of the .me domain registry.
This status is set not by the registrar (GoDaddy), but directly by the main operator of the domain zone — the Montenegrin company doMEn d.o.o., which manages the entire
.me zone. This organization is a joint venture of Identity Digital, GoDaddy, and ME-net.#outages #bans
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Telegram Info English
The .me registry has blocked the t.me domain UPD July 14, 13:00 UTC: The domain was restored. Telegram users worldwide have encountered an outage: short t.me links have stopped opening in regular browsers. The problem affects users in the entire world. …
Telegram Is Still Working on Restoring the t.me Domain
UPD July 14, 13:00 UTC: The domain was restored.
The t.me domain is still down for users worldwide, as it was disabled by the administration of the .me domain zone. The messenger's team has not commented on the matter.
As a temporary measure, users are advised to replace t.me links with telegram.me or telegram.dog — the messenger's official domains.
The @tginfo editors note that Instagram blocks links to telegram.me in profiles, but links to telegram.dog work. Some users report that Instagram bans users from using the “link in bio” feature if the domain is changed, so the best course of action is to wait for the t.me domain to be restored.
Shortly after the news about the domain being disabled, Telegram began replacing t.me links in Telegram apps and on the official telegram.org website. Pavel Durov attempted to contact the .me registry administration via their official Twitter account.
Possible reason for the block
The .me zone belongs to Montenegro, and the infrastructure is managed by a joint venture of Identity Digital, GoDaddy, and the local company ME-net.
The owner of the TeleLakel channel received a response from Identity Digital's support team, which claims that the domain was disabled due to the “need to comply with OFAC-related requirements”.
OFAC is a division of the US Department of the Treasury that administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions.
OFAC has not added Telegram to its sanctions lists. However, an action statement dated July 13, 2026, regarding newly sanctioned companies mentions a service called "FIRST VPN SERVICE". Users noticed that one of the links to its website is a Telegram channel address on the t.me domain.
This could mean that the .me domain operator saw the t.me domain in the sanctions lists and quickly blocked it without further research.
The @tginfo team noticed that this morning the messenger deleted the Telegram channel that was mentioned in this sanctions list. It is unknown whether this channel was actually the reason for the block, or if Telegram did this on their own as a precaution.
#outages #bans
UPD July 14, 13:00 UTC: The domain was restored.
The t.me domain is still down for users worldwide, as it was disabled by the administration of the .me domain zone. The messenger's team has not commented on the matter.
As a temporary measure, users are advised to replace t.me links with telegram.me or telegram.dog — the messenger's official domains.
The @tginfo editors note that Instagram blocks links to telegram.me in profiles, but links to telegram.dog work. Some users report that Instagram bans users from using the “link in bio” feature if the domain is changed, so the best course of action is to wait for the t.me domain to be restored.
Shortly after the news about the domain being disabled, Telegram began replacing t.me links in Telegram apps and on the official telegram.org website. Pavel Durov attempted to contact the .me registry administration via their official Twitter account.
Possible reason for the block
The .me zone belongs to Montenegro, and the infrastructure is managed by a joint venture of Identity Digital, GoDaddy, and the local company ME-net.
The owner of the TeleLakel channel received a response from Identity Digital's support team, which claims that the domain was disabled due to the “need to comply with OFAC-related requirements”.
OFAC is a division of the US Department of the Treasury that administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions.
OFAC has not added Telegram to its sanctions lists. However, an action statement dated July 13, 2026, regarding newly sanctioned companies mentions a service called "FIRST VPN SERVICE". Users noticed that one of the links to its website is a Telegram channel address on the t.me domain.
This could mean that the .me domain operator saw the t.me domain in the sanctions lists and quickly blocked it without further research.
The @tginfo team noticed that this morning the messenger deleted the Telegram channel that was mentioned in this sanctions list. It is unknown whether this channel was actually the reason for the block, or if Telegram did this on their own as a precaution.
A popular rumor about the reason for the block
A version is spreading in the community that the t.me domain was revoked because the official Telegram Twitter account joked about the September 11th terrorist attack.
The @tginfo editors consider this version unlikely: if it were true, the .me domain zone administration would likely have blocked all Telegram domains, including telegram.me. Furthermore, the published image was not a joke invented by the company itself, but one of the most popular entries submitted by users as part of a contest.
#outages #bans
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Telegram Info English
Telegram Is Still Working on Restoring the t.me Domain UPD July 14, 13:00 UTC: The domain was restored. The t.me domain is still down for users worldwide, as it was disabled by the administration of the .me domain zone. The messenger's team has not commented…
The t.me Domain Has Been Restored by the .me Registry
Checks by the @tginfo editors show that the .me zone's main server has returned the DNS records for the t.me domain.
Since DNS records are cached at the level of various DNS services and providers, it may take up to 24 hours for service to be restored on users' devices.
#outages #bans
Checks by the @tginfo editors show that the .me zone's main server has returned the DNS records for the t.me domain.
Since DNS records are cached at the level of various DNS services and providers, it may take up to 24 hours for service to be restored on users' devices.
#outages #bans
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Telegram Info English
The t.me Domain Has Been Restored by the .me Registry Checks by the @tginfo editors show that the .me zone's main server has returned the DNS records for the t.me domain. Since DNS records are cached at the level of various DNS services and providers, it…
The .me registry commented on the suspension of the t.me domain
A representative of the .me domain zone administration commented on Twitter about the situation regarding the ban of the t.me domain, which belongs to Telegram:
It is unclear from the comment whether the .me administration evaluated the appropriateness of blocking the entire domain of a major social platform and whether the registry will resort to such methods in the future.
As a reminder, on July 13, the .me registry disabled the DNS records for the t.me domain without any public statements from the zone administration or Telegram. On July 14, Identity Digital support explained the ban as compliance with OFAC requirements, and a link to a Telegram channel was found in the service's sanctions lists, which the messenger soon deleted, after which the domain was restored.
The .me zone is allocated to the government of Montenegro, but on its behalf, the infrastructure is managed by a joint venture between Identity Digital, GoDaddy, and the local company ME-net.
#outages #bans
A representative of the .me domain zone administration commented on Twitter about the situation regarding the ban of the t.me domain, which belongs to Telegram:
The .ME Registry works closely with law enforcement to monitor and mitigate issues across the .ME domain in accordance with applicable laws, including sanctions requirements.
On 13 July, First VPN Service (1VPNS) was included as a sanctioned entity by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. A Telegram channel using the t.me domain was among 1VPNS identified infrastructure. Accordingly, the t.me domain was suspended.
On 14 July, Telegram provided confirmation that it had removed its links and affiliations with 1VPNS. Once the confirmation was reviewed and verified, the suspension was removed from the t.me domain.
We appreciate Telegram’s prompt cooperation in resolving this matter.
It is unclear from the comment whether the .me administration evaluated the appropriateness of blocking the entire domain of a major social platform and whether the registry will resort to such methods in the future.
As a reminder, on July 13, the .me registry disabled the DNS records for the t.me domain without any public statements from the zone administration or Telegram. On July 14, Identity Digital support explained the ban as compliance with OFAC requirements, and a link to a Telegram channel was found in the service's sanctions lists, which the messenger soon deleted, after which the domain was restored.
The .me zone is allocated to the government of Montenegro, but on its behalf, the infrastructure is managed by a joint venture between Identity Digital, GoDaddy, and the local company ME-net.
#outages #bans
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