Russians are launching paper planes in protest against Moscow’s recent crackdown against messenger app Telegram.

Young activists have filmed themselves throwing paper airplanes in a show of solidarity with the company after the Russian government banned the app earlier this month.

Telegram, a cloud-based communication service registered in the UK, depicts a paper plane in its logo. It was sanctioned after it refused to hand over encryption keys, which could be used to unscramble messages, to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB).

App developer Bulat Ganiev, whose company Technokratos has offices in Russia, China and the US, shared his origami protest on Instagram.

Saint Petersburg-based Oleg Shuldyakov, founder of gaming studio Shuographics, weighed in on the act with his own video selfie.

Fellow instagrammer @257zero also published their snap of someone brandishing a paper plane opposite FSB headquarters in Moscow.

Efforts to cut off access to Telegram in Russia have adversely affected other online services in the country. On Monday (April 23), technology giant Google confirmed to TechCrunch that Russian users have had problems accessing Google products, such as Gmail and Google search, which use net addresses that have been blocked by the Russian communications watchdog Roskomnadzor.