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News India Live, Digital Desk: It is difficult for us Indians to spend even a day without WhatsApp. From ‘Good Morning’ messages to office work, everything happens on it. But just imagine, if in any country you wake up in the morning and find out that WhatsApp has stopped working, how would you feel?
A similar fear is now haunting the people of Russia. The Russian government has given a stern warning to WhatsApp that if it does not change its policies, the app will be banned in the entire country.
After all, what happened that the app which was running till now, suddenly started irking the government? Come, let us understand the real reason behind this.
Root of discord: WhatsApp’s ‘Channel’ feature
If you keep updating WhatsApp, you might have noticed that recently the app “Channels” A new feature named has arrived. It is exactly like Telegram, where any person or organization can create their own channel and send messages to millions of people simultaneously.
This feature is not pleasing to the Russian government, i.e. Vladimir Putin’s administration.
Russian lawmakers and security officials say that WhatsApp is no longer just a ‘chatting app’, but has become a “mass communication tool.” They fear that this ‘Channels’ feature can be used to spread false news or propaganda against Russia.
First Facebook and Insta, now WhatsApp?
Perhaps you remember, Facebook and Instagram have already been blocked in Russia. Russia their parent company Meta Has been declared an “extremist organization”.
Surprisingly, despite being a part of Meta, WhatsApp was not banned in Russia till now. The reason for this was that Russia considered it only a medium of communication between friends and family. But, with the arrival of ‘Channels’ feature, the character of WhatsApp has changed. Now it has become like a social media platform, and this is what Russia did not like.
direct warning from government
The head of a committee of the Russian Parliament has clearly said that if WhatsApp gives space to anti-Russian channels on its platform and misinformation is spread there, then we will have no choice but to block it.
The government there does not want any outside company to control the information or news inside their country in its own way.
Will it really be banned?
It will be interesting to see how the meta reacts to this. Meta has recently launched the ‘Channels’ feature globally. If it bows to Russia’s pressure, the feature will have to be removed, and if it does not, Russian citizens may soon have to resort to VPN or some other app on their phones.
At present, in this battle between technology and politics, only common users are seen to be the loser.
