Messaging app WhatsApp could soon be blocked in Russia as lawmakers tighten restrictions on digital platforms from "hostile states."
"It's time for WhatsApp to prepare to leave the Russian market," Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the Duma Committee on Information Policy, said in a post on Telegram.
The app owned by the Meta giant is expected to be added to the list of banned apps due to its links to Western countries, he said.
Following a decree signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2021, the Russian government has begun compiling a list of "hostile states", initially including the United States and the Czech Republic.
The list was expanded after the war in Ukraine to include the entire European Union. In June, the Russian parliament passed a law creating a state-owned messaging app.
At the time, it was said that government services should be included in this messaging app, which could be called Max.
Since the start of Russia's war in Ukraine three years ago, Moscow has significantly increased censorship and control over the internet.
On Thursday, Parliament approved new legislation that makes it punishable by a $64 fine for any search for content on the internet that authorities classify as "extremist."
Platforms that criticize elites, including the Anti-Corruption Foundation, founded by the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, are among the targeted pages.
Until now, there has been no regulation in Russia that prohibits the free search for information on the Internet, as many independent and Western media websites are blocked./ REL (A2 Televizion)
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