Teachers in Dagestan were advised to abandon WhatsApp

The authorities of Dagestan recommended that teachers abandon WhatsApp in favor of the Russian analogue, the Sferum platform. The authorities of four regions previously announced a ban on the use of foreign instant messengers in schools.

The Ministry of Education and Science of Dagestan recommended that school teachers stop using foreign instant messengers, including WhatsApp (owned by Meta, recognized as extremist and banned in RUSSIA), for work and switch to domestic analogues. RIA Novosti reports this with reference to the press service of the regional ministry.

Explaining this decision, the department referred to the federal law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection,” which banned the use of foreign instant messengers for work in the provision of state and municipal services from March 1 of this year.

As an alternative messenger, teachers were recommended to use the Sferum platform, created by the federal Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Digital Development to implement the national project “Education”.

The Sferum platform (VK and Rostelecom) was developed as an analogue of the American video conferencing service Zoom. The Sferum educational profile in VK Messenger is intended for study and communication between teachers, students and their parents. You can create video calls and chats in it.

The authorities of the Sverdlovsk, Yaroslavl, Kaliningrad and Orenburg regions previously reported a ban on the use of foreign instant messengers in schools.

In March 2022, the COURT recognized the Meta Platforms corporation, which owns WhatsApp, Instagram and FACEBOOK , as an extremist organization. After this, Instagram and Facebook were blocked. Sources from TASS and RIA Novosti reported that the blocking will not affect WhatsApp, since it is a means of communication and not dissemination of information.

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However, in September, after WhatsApp launched channels for users on its platform similar to TELEGRAM , State Duma deputy and HEAD of the information policy committee Alexander Khinshtein allowed the messenger to be blocked. He explained that, in his opinion, WhatsApp channels will be “anti-Russian in nature”, since the messenger “belongs to the extremist company Meta with all the ensuing consequences.” Later, Roskomnadzor warned of the risk of blocking WhatsApp if “unfriendly channels with prohibited information” appear on it.

As a result, WhatsApp refused to launch the channel function in Russia. The head of the Ministry of Digital Development, Maksut Shadayev, promised that “everything will be fine” with WhatsApp in Russia.