Russia's Telegram ban is causing problems for Twitch
Blocking Amazon IPs has locked some users out of the streaming platform.
According to multiple reports on Reddit and Twitter, Twitch has been blocked in Russia to some extent. This comes a day after the country's state communications regulator finally managed to silence the secure messaging app Telegram. To do so, the nation blocked IP addresses owned by Google and Amazon -- the latter of which owns Twitch.
In a post on the Twitch subreddit, self-described streamer Angry_Roleplayer claimed that regulators ended up blocking over 20 million IP and IP gates, and the livestreaming service was an unwitting casualty: When they try to stream, they get a '2000: Network Error'. The user noted they had to use a VPN and TOR to write a message on Twitch -- a workaround that likely re-routes traffic too much to stream.
The Russia-based Team Empire tweeted out its own issues yesterday, but assured followers today that the Twitch blockage stemmed from the country's efforts to stamp out Telegram.
Twitch won't be banned in Russia (for now). It's just consequences of russian government in attempt to block Telegram
They already blocked 10-16M IPs alongside Amazons and Googles. No worries yall have our views— Team Empire (@team_empire) April 18, 2018
It's unclear how widespread the Twitch outage is, or whether other AWS and Google services have been affected by the IP blocks. We've reached out to Twitchfor comment and will include it when we hear back.
