{"id":991837,"date":"2026-02-13T12:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T06:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/?p=991837"},"modified":"2026-02-13T12:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T06:58:07","slug":"russia-trying-to-fully-block-whatsapp-to-push-state-owned-surveillance-app-claims-meta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/2026\/02\/13\/russia-trying-to-fully-block-whatsapp-to-push-state-owned-surveillance-app-claims-meta\/","title":{"rendered":"Russia trying to \u2018fully block\u2019 WhatsApp to push \u2018state-owned surveillance app\u2019, claims Meta"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Russia reportedly tried to &#8220;fully block&#8221; Meta&#8217;s WhatsApp in the country amid efforts to promote home-grown platforms and gain greater control over its internet space. The block is Russia&#8217;s efforts to drive users to a &#8220;state-owned surveillance app&#8221;, a Meta spokesperson told Reuters on Wednesday. Meta Platforms, which owns WhatsApp, said that it &#8220;continued to do everything we can to keep users connected&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Russia has been at loggerheads with foreign tech providers since the February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Authorities in Moscow are promoting a state-backed app, &#8216;MAX&#8217;, which critics have reportedly claimed could be used to track users.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russia reportedly tried to &#8220;fully block&#8221; Meta&#8217;s WhatsApp in the country amid efforts to promote home-grown platforms and gain greater control over its internet space. The block is Russia&#8217;s efforts to drive users to a &#8220;state-owned surveillance app&#8221;, a Meta spokesperson told Reuters on Wednesday. Meta Platforms, which owns WhatsApp, said that it &#8220;continued to do everything we can to keep users connected&#8221;. Russia has been at loggerheads with foreign tech providers since the February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Authorities in Moscow are promoting a state-backed app, &#8216;MAX&#8217;, which critics have reportedly claimed could be used to track users.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,4,52],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-991837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hindustantimes","category-newspapers","category-telecom-hindustantimes"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=991837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991837\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=991837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=991837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=991837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}