A Russian court ruled that Meta had carried out extremist activities, and effectively enforced the ban on Facebook and Instagram in his country. Interestingly, the court still allowed WhatsApp to operate in Russia.
"This decision does not apply to the activity of the Meta messenger, WhatsApp, because it does not function for the dissemination of information to the public," the Russian court said, as quoted by Wired, Wednesday (23/3/2022).
This decision certainly makes some people wonder why WhatsApp can get away with it. As is known, Facebook and Instagram have been blocked since early March after clashes with the Kremlin over the distribution of content related to the invasion of Ukraine.
For some observers, WhatsApp's escape from the snare of blocking shows the Russian government's increasingly erratic policies. Others think that the Kremlin is worried that Russians will protest because their daily lives have been affected by sanctions and food shortages.
According to Statista data, WhatsApp is one of the most popular applications in Russia with 84 million monthly active users as of January 2022. With this popularity, the Russian government is worried that there will be political backlash if WhatsApp is blocked.
"The state (Russia) is trying to calculate the additional loss. You can't compare WhatsApp in Russia to WhatsApp in Brazil, for example," said researcher at the German Council on Foreign Relations, Alena Epifanova.
Epifanova added that the use of WhatsApp in Russia is largely not done for political purposes. This messaging app is used by citizens to chat with their friends and family, so there is a risk of protests from people using WhatsApp for privacy purposes not politics.
When announcing the blocking of foreign platforms, the Russian government did appear to be targeting less popular services. For example, Twitter, the 11th most popular app, was blocked on March 4.
Facebook and Instagram, the 7th and 4th most popular platforms, also disappeared in March. Even so, WhatsApp and YouTube which are the two most popular US platforms in Russia are still operating normally.
"Despite the fact that YouTube violates every rule on the internet in Russia, they are not blocked, and will not be blocked, because the audience is too large," said Internet Protection Society co-founder Leonid Volkov.
Apart from popularity issues, Russia is also reluctant to block WhatsApp and YouTube because of one simple problem: no local platform can replace them.
Russia has created a YouTube replacement called RuTube, but according to Volkov, users of this service are almost non-existent. Meanwhile, the Kremlin's relationship with WhatsApp's main competitor, Telegram, is not very harmonious.
Russia blocked Telegram in 2018, but then lifted it two years later. Now in the midst of the invasion, Telegram has become the messaging platform of choice for Russian citizens.
But it looks like Russia will have its own version of WhatsApp replacement in the near future. Reportedly, the Russian internet company VK Group is planning to revive the messaging service ICQ, which was popular in the early 2000s.
"I don't think they will have any success with ICQ. It's kind of a joke because the service is so old-school. I think it's part of a bigger project to replace all US social media or instant messaging platforms with a controllable service," Epifanova said.