Russia announced Wednesday to restrict calls made through the WhatsApp and Telegram message, a new tour of the authorities after the blockade, in recent years, of several Western social networks.
“To combat criminals, measures have been taken to restrict the calls of these foreign messaging applications (WhatsApp and Telegram),” said the state of the State, citing Russia’s communications supervision authority.
Russian authorities accuse these messages to facilitate fraud and “involve Russian citizens in sabotage and terrorist activities,” adds the same source.
WhatsApp soon prohibited in Russia?
At the end of July, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law that restricts a little more freedom of expression. This new text plans to punish the internet research of the “extremist” content classified and prohibits the promotion of VPN (virtual private network, a virtual private network in French), which protects its users when encrypting their data, systems widely used in Russia to avoid censorship.
Since 2024, the YouTube video platform has only been accessible in Russia through a VPN. And since 2022, the social networks of Facebook and Instagram of the Meta American group, declared “extremists” in Russia, are also blocked.
In July, a Russian deputy, Anton Gorelkine, told him that WhatsApp, also owned by Meta, had to prepare to “leave the Russian market” because there was a strong probability that the application will soon be added to the software list from the countries considered “Incamics” by Moscow. These statements had been fears of the most used Messies.
The Kremlin drastically restricted freedom of the press and freedom of expression on the Internet since the launch of its offensive in Ukraine in 2022, by focusing more and more on Western platforms such as Google, Facebook, YouTube and X.
Source: BFM TV
