“Representatives of the WhatsApp messenger announced an attempt by the Russian authorities to completely block access to the messenger in the country”, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
The message was published on the official account of WhatsApp on the night of February 12 – after the “In Touch” project, against the background of the latest statements of Roskomnadzor, announced that it had checked several sites of popular resources in Russia and found that 13 of them, including WhatsApp, had deleted data from the National Domain Name System (NDIS), which was created as part of the “sovereign Runet” law.
“Today, the Russian authorities tried to completely block WhatsApp in an attempt to force people to switch to the state-owned, non-tracking-protected application,” the messenger’s account in X reported (the application apparently refers to the MAX messenger, which is actively promoted by the Russian authorities). – “The attempt to isolate more than 100 million users without the right to private and secure communication is a step backwards that can only lead to a decrease in the security of people in Russia”
The National System of Domain Names also deleted data on the sites of “Nastoyachech Vremena”, Radio Svoboda, BBC News, Deutshe Welle, YouTube, Facebook and the Tor browser. When you try to access these resources without a VPN, the network equipment cannot associate the addresses of the sites with its IP and gives an error. In other words, access is only possible using a VPN or other blocking tools.
No official comments have yet been received from the Russian authorities or representatives of the NSDI.
Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday that the decision to block WhatsApp was implemented due to unwillingness to comply with Russian law. Peskov called the MAX messenger “an affordable alternative to foreign messengers.”