Filmstrip «The Tale of Tsar Saltan» (A.S. Pushkin). Artist: R. Bylinskaya. 1964.
A messenger is a herald. And the herald bringing bad news is executed (we will not retell the joke about the «messenger from Pisa» here out of natural delicacy). This is what happened with the familiar forms of communication existence for Russians, and therefore, existence as such. After testing the waters first on blocking YouTube, and then on restricting voice calls in WhatsApp and Telegram, Roskomnadzor, almost the main power agency today, threatened to block these messengers completely. They supposedly became a base not only for fraudulent but also for terrorist activities.
Quiet Sabotage
The decision is short-sighted even from the point of view of the authorities themselves. After all, surveillance of the subordinate population using these messengers is quite effective — Big Brother has the opportunity to know everything about those he wants to know about. Enemy means of communication cover the main part of the country's population — what a vast Russian field for surveillance and eavesdropping! According to Mediascope (12+, all of Russia), in October the monthly reach of WhatsApp was 96.3 million people (78.3% of messenger users), and the average daily audience was 81.2 million (66%). The similar reach of Telegram was 91 million people (74%), the average daily audience was 68 million people (55.3%). The average daily reach of the native messenger Max, which is intended to become an analogue of the non-alternative Chinese WeChat, according to VK, was 19 million people in October 2025 (a total of 55 million users registered).
According to the data of the recognized «foreign agent» «Levada-Center» for August 2025, «WhatsApp» (as it is affectionately called by Russians) was used by 70% of respondents (the share of Telegram users was 62%); the messenger Max was used by 5% of respondents (with the caveat that it was not yet actively promoted then).
From the point of view of market demand, Max, like everything artificial, indigestible, and imposed, naturally loses. But Big Brother has an advantage — absolute monopoly on arbitrariness. If it doesn't work to unify behavior online by offering a new product — we will impose it by force. Literally. Civil servants and other budget-dependent categories of Russians will sooner rather than later have to switch to Max. But here, the seemingly indifferent and adaptable population (this high degree of adaptation and lack of resistance inspires the authorities to penetrate deeper into the private lives of Russians) begins to engage in quiet sabotage. They join Max formally but still use the two most convenient and popular messengers.
For example, in schools, a categorical command is given to all teachers to switch to the domestic product, and teachers must force students and their parents to switch to a platform more convenient for the authorities. Under the following dire threat: all events in the school and class will be notified only through Max. Parents generally don't care, and students even rub their hands — they don't need this information. If necessary, everything will be communicated by traditional methods known since the times of Sukhomlinsky and Makarenko, that is, from a living person to a living person. In my daughter's class, only the class teacher and, for fun, one of the girls switched to Max — it is from her that everyone learns important news. (Much more important than virtual news are live impressions: for example, the image of a young history teacher sitting with his head in his hands over Medinsky's textbook, repeating in a tragic voice: «Goats, what goats...».)
«Will you show the way?»
In the story with the rampaging authorities, there is a very important socio-political dimension, despite the fact that the use of messengers seems largely depoliticized. According to the aforementioned August survey, restrictions on messenger operations and any manifestations of internet censorship are mostly NOT supported by: young people; people whose lives were complicated by problems created by «regulators»; those who do not support Putin and believe that the country is on the wrong path; those who trust YouTube channels as a source of information. Older cohorts, Putin supporters, and those satisfied with everything, as well as TV lovers, tend to support the restrictions.
And how can one not understand the native leadership: by punishing a multi-million audience with blockages, it primarily hurts the part of the population that is dubious from the point of view of national unity. And the rest... They will grumble, as usual, and calm down. They will switch to Max, recharge with Solovyov and Skabeeva.
At the same time, information space controllers are approaching users from the rear: recently, VPN, which is turned on precisely for conversations via normal human messengers, has been working worse, and communication itself is increasingly malfunctioning. As for geolocation, there's nothing to say — taxi drivers often switch to the proven navigator system «Will you show the way?»: natural intelligence here wins over artificial...
Musicians Against Statues
Here, the main battlefield of the technological power bureaucracy with the most productive and promising part of the population is now being revealed: the sociological age category of 18-24 years mainly uses Telegram (91%), people aged 24-39 prefer WhatsApp (82%). The technological advancement of young cohorts allows them to bypass restrictions, but the soldiers of digital authoritarianism are not asleep and are inventing new ways to block free communications and information dissemination. Moreover, it is clear that this is done by young, educated in the field of IT, people — principled conformists.
The battle has moved from the squares to virtual space. The next stage is the adaptation of artificial intelligence to the needs of the digital Big Brother, political manipulators, and «social architects». Training artificial intelligence in the language and ideology of power. Unless this inflated AI bubble unexpectedly bursts, as the dot-com bubble of internet companies did with a loud wheeze until 2000.
For now, the semi-totalitarian regime receives, although seemingly small, but frightening blows from where they were not expected — from quite a material environment: this was the case with the sudden viral rebellion of street musicians. It may have been suppressed with desperate cruelty, but it showed that threats to the regime come not only from the virtual environment.
Live people, live music, live thoughts, variability of behavior — what could be more frightening for Big Brother, who can also have program failures. Like the well-known anthropomorphic statue with the characteristic name Aidol, a miracle of domestic robotics: having absorbed the traditional spiritual and moral values of a sovereign thousand-year-old civilization, it took to the podium like a simple Soviet alcoholic, staggering, and, as expected, fell. In the next technological iteration, to maintain Russian folk «sobornost» in robots, three «idols» should be released on stage at once and taught to pour half a liter into three glasses. According to the teachings of «Tsargrad», robots should be painted in the Gzhel style.
Then we will talk about truly high technologies.
* The Russian Ministry of Justice considers Andrey Kolesnikov a «foreign agent».