Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
The Kremlin continues to tighten the Russian censorship.
February 9 and 10, Russians experienced widespread outages on the popular Telegram app.
According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the outage was probably a government induced shutdown meant to tighten the censorship in the country.
Given how popular Telegram is among the Russian public (three out of four Russians above the age of 13 uses it), the domestic backlash against the decision has been massive.
But the Kremlin is not done with trying to curb the digital free speech.
WhatsApp risks total block
According to a statement released by the Meta-owned messaging-app, WhatsApp, the Russian government has ordered a full block of the messaging app in Russia.
According to WhatsApp, this is part of a Russian government plan to force the Russian public to use a state-owned app, that is suspected of surveilling the users.
The statement from WhatsApp was released on X and written in both English and Russian.
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Meta labeled “extremist”
According to the BBC, Meta was labelled “extremist” in 2022, meaning WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook have experienced a drop in users.
The Russian state-run TASS news agency reported earlier in 2026, that WhatsApp was expected to be completely banned in Russia this year.
A number of websites and digital services are reported to have been banned in Russia over the years, including YouTube, the Meta services and news outlets like the BBC.
Sources WhatsApp statement on X, BBC, TASS
