Chinese messaging app WeChat blocked in Russia according to a report in South China Morning Post on Friday. The Roskomnadzor, Russian telecoms watchdog has listed the Chinese social media giant in the prohibited sites in their website on Friday.
“In Russia, access to WeChat was restricted on the basis of Article 15.4 of the law on information, information technologies and information security, according to Roskomnadzor. The article stipulates sanctions for failure to discharge various responsibilities of organisers of information distribution on the internet.” said the report.
WeChat, with nearly 900 million users worldwide, is the latest chat and messaging platform to be blocked by Moscow’s communications and media regulator. A few days earlier, Roskomnadzor, officially known as the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications, blocked BlackBerry Messenger, Line and WeChat according to the report in the SCMP.
China has been aggressively blocking international social media platforms in their country over the last decade. This strategy seems to be reciprocating in the other parts of the world. The same social media was also banned in Iran in 2013. The issue of internet sovereignty is being taken seriously by other countries just has China has been oddly been taking interest at.