138
Russia's State Duma passes bill to create state messaging app as it considers blocking WhatsApp
(kyivindependent.com)
this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2025
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Well that’s because Telegram is likely the state messaging app they’re talking about! 😄
Touché
I assume this is just a joke... Because with the relationship Telegram has with the Russian government this would be quite unlikely.
They do love the illusion of safety it produces. Recently it was confirmed TG's infrastructure is managed by the same guys who do this for FSB. Google iStories for the investigation.
The new messenger would probably be Max, a newly announced app from the russian nephew of Meta, Mail.ru, now called VK after they bought this site from Durov. In last ten years they bought many popular sites, educational platforms, started businesses in many spheres. This helps that it's managed by the son of a russian top beaurocrat, so I guess it's on them to take another niche without any competition.
Link to the mentioned story:
https://www.occrp.org/en/investigation/telegram-the-fsb-and-the-man-in-the-middle
I would say the link is bit more tenuous than you would present it. A Russian guy works for telegram with one of his businesses. Other businesses he owns are suspected of working with FSB.
To be sure, Telegram is most likely not very trustworthy but I thought that the fact they developed their own crypto would be suspicious enough so that people wouldn't use it for sensitive information. Still it has not be confirmed that Telegram's infrastructure is run by FSB.
There are, like, a lot of arrows pointing in that direction but not yet connecting. I assume I can draw the missing part myself. But yep, the solid and direct link could've made wonders, but I'm pretty pessimistic about getting it until FSB archives get open to the public, probably after this regime's critical malfunction. That's not even the first question I'd like to research there if that happens.
I still prefer to keep only work communications and mild content there. Some russian expats reported border guards checked their sub list in TG specifically, so I pumped it up with all Z channels in mute mode, I leave reactions there if that matters anyhow to create myself a SFW persona. As long as it doesn't matters if it tracks my geoloc, I think it's better to have it because not having it makes you deviant and easy to point out.
I love Russia and it's precious president Vladimyr Putin, who shares many qualities with the God-Emperor but one: he's still alive.