Messenger hinted at blocking – Kommersant FM
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Roskomnadzor did not rule out blocking the WhatsApp messenger, which belongs to the recognized extremist corporation Meta, which is banned in the Russian Federation, if channels with illegal content appear on it. Similar statements were made in the State Duma. The official position on the operation of the service in Russia may be revised. This was allowed by the head of the information policy committee, Alexander Khinshtein, and his deputy, Anton Gorelkin. On September 13, the service announced the appearance of channels in which it will be possible to post text, photos, videos, polls and stickers.
Probably, for now, the authorities are trying to warn developers and urge them not to enable this function for Russian users, noted Kommersant FM columnist Mikhail Gurevich:
“The deputies were not afraid, but decided to nip the problem in the bud before WhatsApp channels become as popular as Telegram.
Then it will become much more difficult to combat this phenomenon. They decided to foresee everything in advance and give a hint to the Meta company, which is considered extremist in Russia, so that it at least does not extend the possibility of creating channels to Russians, then it will be able to work on the territory of the Russian Federation. By the way, at the moment this function is not yet available for me and my interlocutors, although they say that it is already available in some countries.”
WhatsApp was not blocked in 2023, along with other products of the banned Meta – Instagram and Facebook. The authorities recognized the messenger as a means of communication, and not a place for posting content. Now the service is actively used by business, and if it is blocked, entrepreneurs will have to switch to Telegram, noted Yulia Zagitova, co-founder of the Breaking Trends communications agency:
“If this hits, it will only hit medium and small businesses, because they are mainly the ones who use WhatsApp as a tool for communicating with clients. That is, when we come to a cafe or some salon, they send us a WhatsApp message for feedback. Bots in this messenger are used to record clients. I think if WhatsApp is blocked, then additional traffic will go to Telegram.
WhatsApp is popular among adults who use it very actively, but they can also switch to Telegram. WhatsApp, unfortunately, is losing the battle for some new features. For example, the round videos that we now see on WhatsApp appeared on Telegram two or three years ago.”
At the end of 2022, Telegram for the first time overtook WhatsApp in terms of traffic volume in Russia, Vedomosti reported, citing data from the Big Four operators.
Everything is clear with us – Telegram channel “Kommersant FM”.
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