As mentioned above, accessing Telegram can be quite difficult—if not impossible—depending where you are in the world. That's because many governments are implementing bans to prevent their citizens from using the messaging app.
The censorship campaign is motivated by diverse reasons, and the blocks can apply to the entire platform or only on specific channels, lasting either long or short-term.
More authoritarian countries see Telegram as a threat as here the app is mainly used to bypass national censorship and share counter-information among its users.
The platform has indeed been central for fueling and coordinating protests in Cuba, Belarus, Thailand and Hong-Kong, for instance. That's why these nations have decided to either completely banned the app (like Cuba), plan to do so (as is threatened in Hong Kong), or censors specific anti-government channels (in Belarus, for example).
But the full use of Telegram has also been restricted, on what many would describe as more liberal countries, over concerns that it might be used in harmful ways.
These can be extremist groups spreading fake news or web pirates illegally sharing copyrighted content. Take a case in November 2021, for instance, where a Portuguese court ordered Telegram to block a selection of channels that facilitated piracy.
Telegram also agreed to shut down more than 60 channels in Germany while implementing the same norm for the future. These came under increased criticism as far right-wing groups used the platform to organize violent demonstrations against the government’s pandemic policies while spreading misinformation.