Russia has branded Meta an “extremist organization” and banned Facebook and Instagram. WhatsApp is a different story.
That popularity means officials would risk political backlash if it was blocked, says Alena Epifanova, a research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations. “The state is trying to calculate collateral damage,” she says, adding that WhatsApp in Russia is mostly politically neutral, used by people to chat with classmates or their family. “You can’t compare WhatsApp in Russia with, for example.
of Russia’s most popular platforms shows that the country’s authorities have been blocking from the bottom. Twitter—the 11th-most popular app in the country—was blocked on March 4. TikTok—the eighth-most popular—suspended its services on March 6. Now Facebook and Instagram—seventh- and fourth-most popular respectively—have also disappeared. Yet the two most popular US platforms in the country—YouTube and WhatsApp—are still operating.
But Volkov also believes there is another reason behind YouTube’s survival, which also applies to WhatsApp. “There is no local substitute,” he adds. Although Russia has created the YouTube alternative RuTube, Volkov describes its market share as “nonexistent.” But WhatsApp might not remain without a Russian substitute for long. “Now they are trying to revive ICQ,” says Epifanova, referencing athat said the Russian internet services company VK Group plans to relaunch a Kremlin-censored messenger service. ICQ, short for “I seek you,” was originally developed in Israel in the 1990s, although the app’s“I am not sure if they can have a lot of success with ICQ. This is kind of a joke because it's so old,” she says.
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