Messenger Max: will WhatsApp and Telegram be blocked for it?

Russian authorities are focusing on China, where foreign messengers are prohibited

First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma IT Committee Anton Gorelkin said on July 18 that WhatsApp, owned by Meta, whose activities in Russia are recognized as extremist and banned, “with a very high probability will be included in the list of software from unfriendly countries that is subject to restrictions.” And Anton Nemkin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, said that “the fate of WhatsApp in Russia is a foregone conclusion.” According to him, the presence of such a service in the Russian digital space is a gap in national security.

Gorelkin also noted that “Telegram’s jurisdiction remains not entirely clear,” since the country of registration in the RKN register is the British Virgin Islands, although the company’s main office is located in the United Arab Emirates. i .

A state-backed competitor to Telegram and WhatsApp has already launched - the Max messenger. “Layout” looks at who it is intended for, how safe it is, and what is the likelihood that the state will ban the use of foreign alternatives.

Why did the state think about blocking WhatsApp and Telegram?

At a meeting with the government on June 4, Vladimir Putin instructed to ensure the functioning of the national digital service. And on June 24, he already signed the law on its creation.

At the above-mentioned meeting, Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev complained about foreign digital companies leading, in his words, “destructive” policies. Shadayev explained that the leading digital platforms in Russia have returned to Russian jurisdiction, but messengers continue to be controlled by foreign companies. At the same time, messengers are the most popular services in Russia.

The monthly audience of WhatsApp in Russia reaches 97.5 million people, according to Mediascope data, this is 79% of the population. Telegram is used monthly by 90.5 million people.

To Putin, Shadayev gave examples of countries where national messengers are more popular than international ones. Among them, he mentioned China, where foreign messengers are simply prohibited.

On July 16, Vladimir Putin instructed the government to prepare proposals to introduce restrictions on the use of communication services from unfriendly countries. This order must be completed by September 1.

At the same time, the authorities have not yet made a final decision on blocking WhatsApp in Russia. The interlocutor of “Vestka” in the AP said that the debate about blocking Telegram and Whatsapp is still ongoing. According to him, the authorities plan to accept it depending on the results and readiness of the infrastructure of the national messenger.

Technical capabilities for blocking WhatsApp began to be actively tested immediately after the adoption of the law on the national messenger. Since the beginning of July, Telegram and WhatsApp have already stopped working at least four times in different regions of Russia. These were short-term blockages, not technical problems, The Bell claims . Journalists suggest that Roskomnadzor may begin rolling out blockages as early as August, taking advantage of the lesser activity of users who have gone to the country or on vacation.

German Klimenko, chairman of the board of the Digital Economy Development Fund, who is close to the state, said in June that Pavel Durov’s messenger could be slowed down or completely blocked in order to help the national application. “Sooner or later everyone will move there. It’s a question of the speed of transition—forcedly fast or calmly slow,” he said. The head of the Internet Protection Society, Mikhail Klimarev, said in an interview with Radio Liberty that he considers it possible to block Telegram this year.

How does the state plan to “transplant” Russians to Max?

As Vorstka previously wrote, they plan to promote the Max messenger using parent, teacher and house chats. According to the publication’s interlocutor in the presidential administration, the chat culture is fundamentally important for the Kremlin.

“Friends and familiar neighbors sit in chat rooms; they really listen to each other and communicate informally. That’s why everything is in the chats. Political strategists work to call for elections, sociologists measure moods: for example, the real attitude towards the authorities, towards initiatives, towards the SVO. The most loyal audience sits there, that is, directly Putin’s voter,” explains the interlocutor of “Vestka”.

Vverstka’s interlocutor at the VK company, which will be responsible for the work of Max, explains that the strategy for promoting the new messenger is to offer a “soft alternative” to Telegram and WhatsApp.

How functional is Max messenger?

On June 30, the national instant messenger Max announced that it had gained its first million users in Russia. And in mid-July, the Ministry of Digital Development announced that Max had two million users in Russia. However, for instant messengers, it is not so much the number of registrations that is important, but the number of people who regularly use it.

In the presented Max application, only basic functionality is now available - correspondence (with a large set of stickers and emoji); in July, users were also allowed to subscribe to public channels (but they will be allowed to create them only in the fall).

Users can communicate in group chats, send voice messages, files up to 4 GB and use built-in calls, including video. At the same time, as of mid-July, it is possible to register only for Russian and Belarusian numbers, “Vorstka” was convinced. It is likely that this limitation may be removed in the future.

In the future, they plan to combine the storage of official documents, government and commercial services, including delivery services and banking, into the application. The so-called superapps, which combine many functions around instant messengers, became popular in China at the beginning of the 2000s, and later spread to other Asian countries.

Putin instructed departments to integrate into the new national application. Russian legislators are already helping him from the other side - since June, banks and telecom operators in Russia have not been able to communicate with users in foreign applications, and civil servants have been unable to use them for work correspondence. This limitation does not apply to Max.

How secure is Max messenger?

“Verstka” previously published instructions on how to safely use Telegram , about the Max messenger it would consist of one word: “No way.”

Chats in Max do not use end-to-end encryption, which allows the creators to read and transfer all user correspondence to intelligence agencies. The application stores message metadata - IP address, contacts, activity time and can transmit them to intelligence agencies upon request.

The voice in the application is analyzed by artificial intelligence - according to the official version, to prevent fraud, but potentially the technology can also identify conversations on “inappropriate” topics from the state’s point of view.

On smartphones, Max attempts to collect call history, geolocation, accesses photos and the list of installed applications, and retrieves information from the clipboard. Many applications do this without the purpose of spying on users, but the very positioning of the messenger as a state-owned one makes one think that all this data can be used by the state.

Illustration: Jonathan Raa via Reuters Connect