After a weekend of chaos and tension, the blocking of Telegram in Spain has been suspended . Although the theory indicated that it should have come into force today as had been discovered in recent days, the National Court has decided to suspend the decision. Instead, other measures will come into play.
Judge Santiago Pedraz has been responsible for confirming, in a ruling dated today , that the blocking of Telegram that had been requested from the operators will not finally come into force. However, this does not mean that the story with Telegram is over, since the judge has asked the General Information Commissioner of the National Police to get to work preparing a report on the messaging application. What does this mean?
The process is still open
Although it is difficult to know for sure what the judge’s definitive plans are regarding the decision he made days ago regarding the blocking of Telegram in Spain, what we can verify is that the situation has not yet been resolved . The report that he has requested from the National Police has two objectives on which the judge has placed special emphasis.
The first of them is about the messaging platform in general. Most likely, the judge will want to understand 100% what the use of this tool entails and what it means for it to be available in Spain. After all, it is a service that more than 8 million Spaniards use, so it is not a random app whose blocking has no impact whatsoever. The second objective of the report requested from the Police is to discover precisely the type of impact that the blocking of Telegram would have among Spanish citizens .
Temporary suspension
From what can be read, it is emphasized again that the decision to block Telegram would, in any case, be a “temporary suspension.” This is something important in view of the consequences it could have on the daily lives of users. A permanent blockade would be terrible for many people, but a temporary one would also cause a lot of problems. We must not forget that, as we mentioned days ago when the news broke, Telegram is an application that is used for many purposes. For example, there are professionals from different sectors who find it one of the best tools to work with. Because of this, blocking it completely could be something that would have too serious repercussions among citizens.
The judge’s final decision seems to be made at the time he receives the report from the National Police and has the opportunity to weigh all the information related to the case. Until now, it had been commented that the blockage came because Telegram had not provided the data that the judge was requesting. The complaint against the application came from a group of entities formed by EGEDA, Antena 3, Mediaset and Movistar, who see Telegram as a threat due to its fight against piracy.
However, the measure surprised the entire country. Users could not believe what was going to happen with Telegram, while different specialists stated that it was a “disproportionate” measure . After all, completely blocking a service like this means that its use is being prevented not only by those who share content illegally, but also by those who use it legally. Therefore, it is expected that, after receiving the report from the National Police, the judge will decide to suspend the blocking of Telegram definitively and, failing that, will find another way to respond to the requests of the aforementioned entities.