The Kremlin is currently working to sever Russian users from the messaging platform WhatsApp, with officials calling it “a legal breach of national security.” While Russia has steadily distanced ties with Western media, WhatsApp is deeply pervasive, with over three quarters of Russians regularly using the platform.
As Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta contemplates President Vladimir Putin’s latest authoritarian demand, the company should remember that the Kremlin has more to lose than WhatsApp. Moscow may not have the capacity to enforce its tough line, and it risks adding another catalyst to growing protest among the Russians who will disobey Mr. Putin’s digital authoritarianism.
As Moscow’s war in Ukraine drags on, the Kremlin continues to ban the free flow of information within Russia. Mr. Putin signed a law that would fine Russians who deliberately searched for “extremist” content and bans the advertisement of virtual private network services, which enable users to evade government restrictions.
Russian lawmakers also hinted that WhatsApp may soon be banned in Russia, labeling it a “security threat.” This week, customers in Russia reported issues related to voice calls on WhatsApp.
The deputy head of the lower house of parliament’s information technology committee, Anton Gorelkin, said WhatsApp should “prepare to leave” Russia. Mr. Putin already has an alternative to WhatsApp.
In June, he endorsed a different, government-backed messaging app called MAX, which would include not only messaging but also access to government services. At the same time, the Russian Duma just passed a bill that would make it a crime simply to search online for what the government deems “extremist” content.
Mr. Putin’s digital authoritarianism is not new. As soon as Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin shuttered what was left of Russia’s independent media and restricted Russians’ access to social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and X in addition to various Western news agencies.
Mr. Putin also signed a law threatening prison time for anyone who deviates from the Kremlin’s talking points on the war or Russia’s military.
In 2012, the Russian government threatened to cut Russia off from the global internet and use the homegrown “Ru-Net” instead, and Russia’s internet regulatory agency — Roskomnadzor — published a “blacklist” of banned websites. Even as the Kremlin continues to ban social media platforms for its own citizens, though, the Russian government still uses those platforms to spread its propaganda in the West.
However, Mr. Putin’s new internet bans are likely a bluff. There is reason to believe that the Russian government cannot enforce its own social media restrictions.
A 2018 ban on the popular messenger app Telegram was reversed after only two years because it was simply ineffective: The app continued to operate in Russia, anyway.
Similarly, even though Moscow banned Instagram in 2022, it remained the second-most popular social media app in Russia at the end of 2024. In another case, Russia’s attempt to slow down internet speed for X users happened to coincide with the crashing of the Kremlin’s website.
Yet even if Moscow were competent enough to ban WhatsApp, there is an additional difficulty for Mr. Putin: The app is popular among Russians, with almost 100 million users.
Officials may fear that backlash from the public over losing social media, the last major holdout of independent discussion in the country, may fuel their discontent and weaken the government.
To be sure, Russians can access banned social media platforms via virtual private networks. Mr. Putin thinks he has a “cure” for that, too: A bill that would criminalize the use of VPNs to access “extremist content.”
The problem is that the Russian authorities have threatened in the past to ban all VPNs, but the efforts did not work. It is past time for companies like Meta to call Mr. Putin’s bluff.
The Russian autocrat is likely to find that fully shutting down dissident speech online is impossible, and that any bungled attempt to do so only makes it more obvious to his people how much he fears them.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
