Just yesterday, Telegram was blocked in Russia. However, when Russia decided to block Telegram, they did so by banning and blocking thousands of IPs. By doing this, they indirectly are affecting popular websites and services.
Yesterday I wrote about how Reddit users are complaining that they can’t access Guild Wars 2, and other games like Splatoon and Mario Kart 8 due to the IP bans. Now, Twitch is being blocked in Russia to the dismay of thousands.
Twitch Banned in Russia in 2018!
The Twitch ban was reported by a popular Russian Twitch personality, Angry Roleplayer. He reported the following:
“Yesterday Russian authorities started blocking Telegram (popular encrypted messenger) and Amazon (and Google) server ip’s country-wide. As a result over 20 MILLION ip’s and ip gates were banned which resulted in massive nation-wide blocking and collapse of many services that used amazon and some google-based servers. Unfortunately twitch is also BLOCKED NOW for most Russians including me! So i had to use VPN and TOR to write a message on actual twitch website. I have literally no idea how i can stream with twitch in this situation. And i am a full-time, twitch affiliated streamer and i just get 2000: Network Error now.”
There are also other popular streamers reporting problems with the IP ban like Team Empire.
because russia tries to shut down telegram and fails, twitch\steam\twitter won’t load properly
but anyway let’s try to watch some dots! Team Empire -vs- @VegaSquadron LIVE!!! https://t.co/MslL5SQuUZ
— Team Empire (@team_empire) April 17, 2018
Why is Russia blocking Twitch?
This whole reason that Twitch is blocked in Russia is because Russia decided that it was mad at Telegram. Telegram is a company who values the privacy of it’s users, and while it’s not the best app for secure messaging–instead of say something like signal, the CEO still didn’t want to comply with demands to give up encryption keys so the Russian government could read user data and intercept messages. Russia thinks that Telegram is used by terrorists, which is ironic, since there are reports of Russian government officials using the app itself (according to a source on Reuters).
“We have currently informed both companies that a significant number of IP addresses located in the clouds of these two services have fallen under the block on the basis of the court ruling (to block Telegram),” says Alexander Zharov, head of the Roskomnadzor (Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications).
As we’ve covered, Russia is becoming more and more aggressive with IP bans lately. They are trying to become more and more like China, where pretty much every popular website like Facebook, Twitter, Twitch and any other website that isn’t owned by China is blocked. In China, the only apps and services used are those controlled directly by the government.
How to Unblock Twitch in Russia
Since ISPs are enforcing restrictions on users in Russia so they can’t use Telegram–and therefore other apps and services that use similar IPs, you’ll need to use a VPN. When you use a VPN (virtual private network) you connect your computer to a remote server that allows you to encrypt your traffic and change your IP address. When you do this, your Russian ISP can’t see what websites you are accessing, and this means they can’t prevent you from using or seeing them. This also works with video games too.
In order to unblock Twitch in Russia, you’ll need a VPN that has good speeds in Russia and has features like a no logging policy, good customer service, and good pricing. Another bonus is that you should be able to pay with cryptocurrency if you really want to step up your anonymity and give out less information about yourself.
Which VPN do I recommend for Russia? Well, my #1 rated VPN, TorGuard VPN, is a fine choice. It’s super fast for torrenting, great for streaming things like Twitch and even the US version of Netflix to bypass the dreaded Netflix proxy error. If you want, check out the full TorGuard Review, where we go over the best things about it.
When will Russia Unblock Twitch?
Why not just wait for the Russian government and ISPs to just unblock Twitch? Well, the whole entire reason that Twitch is blocked is because it got caught in a shotgun blast. By blocking Telegram, a lot of other services relying on the same IPs are now disabled as well. In order to unblock Twitch, Russia would therefore have to unblock Telegram which it doesn’t want to do. Unfortunately, Russia might never unban or unblock Twitch, so you’ll have to use a VPN.
