A few days ago, the Russian authorities blocked access to Instagram for their citizens and announced that Facebook would be considered an “extremist organization”. The official reason was Meta (the owner of these platforms) loosening the rules on hate speech (thanks to which users are not punished, for example, for expressing their hatred towards Putin), and unofficially, it is of course another step towards cutting off Russians from independent sources of information from the world .
As a result, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram are currently not working in Russia, and some Russian women operating on the last of these websites have burst into tears after losing access. However, the Russians are preparing a consolation prize for local fans of the platform – a truly Russian “Instagram”, which will be fully legal in Russia.
Russian Rossgram is to replace Instagram
Russian technology companies are already preparing their own social platform, which will enable – like Instagram – easy sharing of photos with the world. It is to fill the gap on the local market after the disappearance of the American platform.
The service was named Rossgram and is scheduled to start in Russia on March 28. Then, the possibility of setting up accounts for selected people (including investors) will be launched. Bloggers will get this opportunity a bit later, and then others. The app is supposed to be free, but it will also get funding from voluntary contributions from users and fees for accessing some premium content.
“My partner Kirill Filimonov and our team of programmers were already ready for such a turn of events and did not want to miss the opportunity to create a Russian equivalent of the popular social network, so beloved by our compatriots” – wrote Alexander Zobov (Rossgram’s PR director on the Russian portal VKontakte) ) quoted by Reuters.
Rossgram is a copy of Instagram
As its authors praise on the project website, the application is to be intuitive and easy to use, and will also work from anywhere in Russia without the need to use a VPN. The graphics published by the creators show that Rossgram will be a visually almost Russian-language copy of Instagram. Both the colors, the interface and even the website’s logo were taken straight from the American platform.
Rossgram, a Russian copy of Instagram photo: screenshot from the site https://rossgram.ru/
Details about the new Russian social network are still unknown. The application is to be available for Android and iOS smartphones and will most likely be a very hermetic portal, available only to Russians. It can be suspected that thanks to this, the portal will not publish uncensored content that might not appeal to the authorities in the Kremlin.
Source: Gazeta
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