WhatsApp will not launch channels in Russia

The WhatsApp media channel creation service will not be available to users from Russia. this to The Moscow Times . reported A representative of the Meta company

“The product will not be available to users within Russia in the near future,” he said. For the rest, he said, in the coming weeks the messenger will give them the opportunity to create them.

Meta first spoke about the decision to create a media channel service on WhatsApp on September 13. It was assumed that the service would be available in 150 countries. After this, Russian officials began discussing blocking the application. Proposals to block the messenger were made by the Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy Alexander Khinshtein, the Head of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security Viktor Bondarev, and State Duma Deputy Anton Gorelkin.

According to officials, the emergence of channels will lead to WhatsApp turning into a means of information warfare and “a source of fakes.” “There is no doubt about the anti-Russian nature of these channels, since WA belongs to the extremist company Meta,” wrote . Khinshtein

In March 2022, Russian authorities declared Meta an extremist organization and banned its work in the country, blocking Facebook and Instagram. For WhatsApp, the Prosecutor General's Office and the court made an exception because it is supposedly a messenger that is used for people to communicate with each other, and not for mass dissemination of information.

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