WhatsApp is hugely popular in Russia, with 84 million monthly users in January 2022, according to Statista. Although the app is not used to disseminate news in the same way as Facebook or Instagram, both experts and people inside Russia suspect the Kremlin is hesitant to block the country’s most-used platforms.

WhatsApp is one of Russia’s few remaining Western services. “Why only some of Meta’s products are extremist isn’t totally rational to me.”īut for others it is a sign that the Kremlin is worried that ordinary Russians, who are already wrestling with sanctions and shortages, will only tolerate so much disruption to their daily lives. “I don't understand how they can do that,” says Kevin Rothrock, managing editor of the English-language edition of Russian news outlet Meduza. To some, sparing WhatsApp is a sign of increasingly erratic policymaking by Moscow. “The decision does not apply to the activities of Meta's messenger WhatsApp, due to its lack of functionality for the public dissemination of information,” the court said, according to Reuters. But the ruling purposefully allowed the company’s messenger platform WhatsApp to continue operating in the country. Both of the other platforms had been blocked earlier in March after clashing with the Kremlin over content referencing the war in Ukraine. But the court ruling included an interesting carve-out: WhatsApp. On Monday the label-once reserved for the likes of the Taliban and the Islamic State-was given to Facebook’s parent company, Meta.Ī Moscow court ruled that Meta was carrying out extremist activities in a decision that effectively banned social media platforms Facebook and Instagram from operating in Russia. It has become easier to be labeled an extremist in Russia.

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