‘We have the power here, don’t we?’ Anger over WhatsApp and Telegram call bans sparks rare protests in multiple Russian cities
In mid-August, the Russian authorities began blocking the calling feature on the country’s two most popular messaging apps, Telegram and WhatsApp. The official justification was to fight fraud, but the move has caused confusion and frustration across the country, leaving many people unable to reach friends, relatives, or business contacts. At the same time, the government is pushing citizens to switch to Max, a messenger developed by the state-backed social media company VK — though even officials are hesitant to use it. Against this backdrop, several Russian cities have seen some of their first government-allowed protests in years, with participants voicing their complaints in unusually frank terms. Meduza explains who organized these rallies, how they went, and why the authorities may have allowed them.
Protesters in multiple Russian cities have taken to the streets in recent weeks to oppose the authorities’ blocking of the calling features on WhatsApp and Telegram. Demonstrators say the bans violate their constitutional right to free communication.
The first rally against the restrictions took place on August 31 in Voronezh, according to The Moscow Times. About 80 people attended the demonstration, which was organized by the Organization of Voronezh Marxists, a small communist group unaffiliated with the Communist Party of Russia. In addition to opposing the call ban, attendees protested the Russian authorities’ aggressive promotion of the state-backed messenger Max.
Most of the participants were young people, Novaya Gazeta Europe reported. They chanted slogans such as “Ban the bans”; “My mom doesn’t need Max — she needs to see her kids”; and “ First they took our factories, then our pensions, and now our communication. We have one enemy: the capitalists.”
Speakers argued that the government’s recent law requiring new smartphones to have Max pre-installed violates citizens’ rights, including by collecting users’ personal data. As of September 7, according to Novaya Gazeta Europe, organizers had faced no backlash from the authorities.
“It was hard to get the rally approved: we only managed it on the second attempt and had to enlist the help of a lawyer,” a source involved in the protest told the outlet. “So far, there have been no consequences. Everything was organized within the law.”
A video from the Voronezh protest shows a young man addressing the crowd:
We’re the people and we have the power here, don’t we? So why should I have to sit at home and use a VPN just to watch an educational film, to improve myself, to download a book? Russia is a great country, right? And nonetheless, for some reason, I come home, open Telegram, and to use it, I have to use a VPN.
On September 7, similar protests were held in Omsk, Novosibirsk, and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. These demonstrations were organized by another small Marxist-Leninist group, the Russian Communist Party (Internationalists), or RCPI. A participant told reporters that obtaining permits for the events was not difficult.
Chants at these rallies included “Yes to free speech! No to censorship! No to digital dictatorship!” and “We don’t want to feed the cell company oligarchs! Give us our calls back!”
According to a local Telegram channel in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the protest in that city was the first one officially approved by the authorities in years, though attendance was sparse. No detentions were reported. The Novosibirsk event drew around 50 people, including politician Boris Nadezhdin, the only anti-war candidate allowed to participate in the initial stages of Russia’s 2024 presidential race.
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Novaya Gazeta Europe noted that both the Organization of Voronezh Marxists and the RCPI were created in the last few years and are independent of the Russian authorities. The RCPI’s website criticizes the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in unusually harsh terms for an organization operating openly in Russia:
The establishment of the RCPI was the logical result of the near-collapse of the communist movement, when the main parties that call themselves communist — the KPRF, the RKRP, the RPR, and others — took an openly social-chauvinist or centrist stance in support of the ruling class and the special military operation.
The human rights group OVD-Info told Novaya Gazeta Europe it was surprised the authorities approved the two communist groups’ rallies given their slogans. Political writer Ilya Budraitskis echoed this view:
Why RCPI has now been allowed more than once to hold legal rallies critical of the authorities is an open question. Perhaps the authorities want to gauge the level of opposition support and identify those who attend. Either way, their organizers are brave people who are putting themselves at risk.