The State Duma, the lower chamber of Russia's parliament, passed a bill on June 10 to create a new messaging app, the so-called "national messenger," the Duma's press service reported, as the Kremlin tries to reduce its dependency on WhatsApp and Telegram

The new app "combines the features of a messenger and the functions of government services," a statement read.

The news comes as Russia tries to reduce citizens' access to foreign messengers and other online services in favor of domestic applications.

The new online platform is needed to increase "the availability of governmental services" and "strengthen the protection of information exchanged among users," according to the bill.

The new application will be integrated into Russian state and municipal databases, and private information can be transferred with the user's consent, particularly for "identification, signing contracts, paying for services or goods."

Documents submitted through the "national messenger" will be equated to paper originals. The system will also allow users to certify documents with their electronic signatures.

The Russian messenger will include all "educational services and chats that educational institutions of all levels currently use."

The Russian government will choose a company to develop the application.

In March 2022, the Russian government blocked Facebook and Instagram. Two years later, Russia's communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, announced the blocking of Viber and Signal apps.

The Russian government is also considering blocking WhatsApp, an app owned by Meta, a company labeled as an "extremist organization" in Russia.

In July 2024, Russia's communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, began throttling YouTube speeds, initially blaming technical issues caused by wear and tear on Google's servers. Google dismissed the claim, while Russian lawmaker Alexander Khinshtein later confirmed the slowdowns were intentional.

In African universities, Russia’s war against Ukraine finds new supporters

The halls of academia have long been considered sanctuaries of critical thinking, intellectual discourse, and the pursuit of truth. Universities across the globe pride themselves on fostering environments where diverse perspectives can be examined, debated, and understood through the lens of scholarly rigor. However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has

The Kyiv IndependentNgotho Gichuru

Ukrainian drones targeted Russia’s Tatarstan overnight on 10 June, with explosions heard and drones seen in the cities of Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk — over 1,200 km from Ukraine’s border. Russian authorities responded by grounding flights at multiple airports and expanding penalties for publishing drone strike footage.

Drone strikes target Tatarstan and beyond

According to reports from Russian Telegram channels including Astra and Mash, explosions were heard in Nizhnekamsk, as the Ukrainian Liutyi drones were spotted there, and in Tatarstan’s Yelabuga. Eyewitnesses cited by Mash claimed the drones were flying north, toward areas with suspected drone factories.

Ukrainian Telegram channel Supernova+ also shared last night’s footage featuring the sound of a massive explosion, head in Russia’s Tver, and of a drone fly-by in Saratov.

Local residents captured the moment when air defense missiles failed to intercept a fixed-wing drone flying over Tatarstan’s Nizhnekamsk. 

The Shahed-manufacturing facility in Yelabuga was last targeted by Ukrainian drones in late May and, earlier, in April.

Drones hit Russia’s Shahed drone factory 1,200 km from Ukraine again

Russian MoD claims widespread drone interceptions

The Russian Ministry of Defense stated that between 21:50 and 23:55 Moscow time on 9 June, Russian air defense destroyed 76 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones: 46 over Bryansk Oblast, 16 over Belgorod Oblast, 2 each over Oryol and Kaluga oblasts, and 1 over Voronezh Oblast, and 9 over occupied Crimea.

In the next morning update, the Russian MoD claimed a total of 102 UAVs were intercepted overnight, including drones over Moscow, Tatarstan, and other regions.

The Leningrad Oblast governor, Aleksandr Drozdenko, stated a drone was allegedly shot down over Tosnensky District. He also reported restrictions on mobile and internet access in several areas. He also said internet and mobile communication restrictions were imposed in places.

Flight disruptions across multiple Russian cities

The Russian Federal Air Transport Agency, Rosaviatsiya, temporarily restricted take-offs and landings at airports in Nizhnekamsk, Pulkovo in St. Petersburg, Izhevsk, Kirov, and all Moscow airports.

Artem Korenyako of Rosaviatsiya noted the suspensions were imposed at the height of the drone threat, and that safety protocols such as the standard plan Kovyor, grounding all civilian aviation, were enacted in multiple cities.

Russia enacts regional bans on sharing drone strike data

Russian officials have imposed fines and restrictions on publishing any materials about drone strikes. Kommersant reports that regional governments have introduced penalties ranging from administrative fines to criminal prosecution.

In some instances, the fines — ranging from 3,000 to 200,000 rubles ($40–$2,550) — were issued to residents who shared videos or comments on social media. Media outlets, Telegram channel admins, and social media users have also been targeted. Repeat violations can lead to up to three years in prison.

It's time to acknowledge an uncomfortable truth. The internet, as we've known it for the last 15 years, is breaking apart. This is not just true in the sense of, say, China or North Korea not having access to Western services and apps. Across the planet, more and more nations are drawing clear lines of sovereignty between their internet and everyone else's. Which means it's time to finally ask ourselves an even more uncomfortable question: what happens when the World Wide Web is no longer worldwide?

Over the last few weeks the US has been thrown into a tailspin over the impending divest-or-ban law that might possibly block the youth of America from accessing their favorite short-form video app. But if you've only been following the Supreme Court's hearing on TikTok you may have totally missed an entirely separate Supreme Court hearing on whether or not southern American states like Texas are constitutionally allowed to block porn sites like Pornhub. As of this month, 17 US states have blocked Pornhub for refusing to adhere to "age-verification laws" that would force Pornhub to collect users' IDs before browsing the site, thus making sensitive, personal information vulnerable to security breaches. 

But it's not just US lawmakers that are questioning what's allowed on their corner of the web. 

Following a recent announcement that Meta would be relaxing their fact checking standards Brazilian regulators demanded a thorough explanation of how this would impact the country's 100 million users. Currently the Brazilian government is "seriously concerned" about these changes. Which itself is almost a verbatim repeat of how Brazilian lawmakers dealt with X last year, when they banned the platform for almost two months over how the platform handled misinformation about the country's 2023 attempted coup.

Speaking of X, the European Union seems to have finally had enough of Elon Musk's digital megaphone. They've been investigating the platform since 2023 and have given Musk a February deadline to explain exactly how the platform's algorithm works. To say nothing of the French and German regulators grappling with how to deal with Musk's interference in their national politics.

And though the aforementioned Chinese Great Firewall has always blocked the rest of the world from the country's internet users, last week there was a breach that Chinese regulators are desperately trying to patch. Americans migrated to a competing app called RedNote, which has now caught the attention of both lawmakers in China, who are likely to wall off American users from interacting with Chinese users, and lawmakers in the US, who now want to ban it once they finally deal with TikTok.

All of this has brought us to a stark new reality, where we can no longer assume that the internet is a shared global experience, at least when it comes to the web's most visible and mainstream apps. New digital borders are being drawn and they will eventually impact your favorite app. Whether you're an activist, a journalist, or even just a normal person hoping to waste some time on their phone (and maybe make a little money), the spaces you currently call home online are not permanent. 

Time to learn how a VPN works. At least until the authorities restrict and regulate access to VPNs too, as they already do in countries such as China, Iran, Russia and India. 

A version of this story was published in this week’s Coda Currents newsletter. Sign up here.

The post Blocking Pornhub and the death of the World Wide Web appeared first on Coda Story.