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Global Free Speech

Russian independent journalists fear MAX app, new online restrictions will hinder reporting

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Russian independent journalists fear MAX app, new online restrictions will hinder reporting

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As Russian authorities tighten the screw on popular messaging app Telegram and promote a state-backed “super app” that observers say could act as a surveillance tool, independent journalists and media outlets inside and outside Russia say it will become more difficult to report stories securely and stay connected to audiences. 

President Vladimir Putin is pushing for “digital sovereignty” and more control over Russia’s online infrastructure, including through the promotion of the MAX app, which some journalists and experts have compared to China’s WeChat – a powerful surveillance tool for the state.

MAX was released by Russian technology giant VK in March 2025 and is intended as a domestic alternative to Telegram, a critical platform for independent and exiled media that the Kremlin wants to curtail because it offers an alternative source of information, notably since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Amid growing censorship, Telegram allows opposition figures, journalists, human rights defenders, activists and digital influencers to reach large audiences outside traditional state-controlled media channels. Its relative independence makes it harder for the authorities to control the flow of information. 

But since February, state media regulator Roskomnadzor has introduced restrictions on Telegram over what it says is failure to combat fraud, delete extremist content and protect user data. 

Observers, including Telegram’s founder Pavel Durov, say the throttling of the app is designed to push people into embracing MAX, allowing authorities to more easily control news and information and making it specifically harder for journalists, inside and outside the country, to communicate securely with potential sources or receive tip-offs. 

The Telegram crackdown comes on top of widespread internet shutdowns, which have cut off many Russians from reliable information as Putin’s popularity declines and tensions grow over the war in Ukraine. 

“Two phone practices”

Designed to integrate messaging with government services, payments, and digital identity, MAX functions as a kind of digital wallet and since September 2025, authorities have required the app to be pre-installed on all smartphones sold in the country.

Some security researchers say MAX may allow authorities to spy on users’ activity, with one report saying it could detect the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) and share address book details. In April, internet infrastructure and cybersecurity company Cloudflare briefly flagged MAX as malicious spyware. In June, Apple removed the app from its App Store, saying it did so to comply with unspecified international sanctions.   

Russian authorities deny MAX is a surveillance tool.

Some Russians have installed MAX on a separate phone to minimise the risk of surveillance but while journalists and sources may also increasingly adopt this “two-phone” practice, burner devices, or stricter compartmentalization, not everyone will have the knowledge or means to do so.  

Monitoring of MAX users could affect Russians living abroad, including exiled journalists, and fuel transnational repression.

“For Russians abroad, especially for anti-war activists, dissidents, defectors, journalists, and other targeted groups, digital dependency on Russian platforms, either with their own account or accounts of relatives or contacts based in Russia, may create vulnerabilities extending beyond standard privacy concerns,” according to the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) at the Atlantic Council, a nonpartisan global think tank.

Rights advocates say these risks could extend beyond individual users to relatives, friends and professional contacts who remain in Russia, particularly if sensitive communications are tied to platforms subject to Russian jurisdiction.

In late May, a court in Kemerovo, in the southwest of Siberia, issued what is believed to be the first fine over content critical of Putin on MAX. Although she was not the creator of the item, the user who posted it was fined 30,000 rubles (US$404) for sharing material deemed to show “clear disrespect” towards Putin.

“Inherently risky”

Exiled investigative journalist Andrei Zakharov, who hosts The Insider Live YouTube program Proslushka (“The Wire”), said MAX was fundamentally incompatible with independent reporting and that one of its core purposes appeared to be controlling “which channels exist and what they publish.”

Zakharov told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) any communication through MAX “would be inherently risky.”

Mikhail Klimarev, executive director of the Internet Protection Society, an exiled non-profit that advocates for digital rights in Russia, said MAX would be used “solely and exclusively by propagandists.”

He added: “There is no scenario in which this platform can be used safely.” 

MAX is designed to comply fully with Russian surveillance laws, including requirements to provide user correspondence and communication records to security services. 

By early March, around 100 million people had registered with MAX. In March, VK said the daily audience had reached 70 million daily users. 

An exiled journalist living in Germany, who did not want to give her name, told CPJ her mother, who lives in Russia, was afraid to download MAX for fear of surveillance because her daughter is a journalist. 

“She is concerned about the possibility that (our) communications could be exposed. She believes that if she downloads MAX, we will no longer be able to communicate as openly as we do now. In her view, that would create risks for both of us,” the journalist said.

At least 30 journalists are imprisoned in Russia in connection with their work.  

State narratives

Digital rights advocates warn MAX will evolve into a closed ecosystem dominated by state-approved narratives.

“The government has now started moving pro-government, loyal voices and media channels registered with Roskomnadzor from Telegram to MAX,” Aleksei Obukhov, exiled editor-in-chief of independent news outlet SOTA, told CPJ.

State-sponsored news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti are among them. About 70% of all channels on MAX were created by government agencies, according to exiled investigative news outlet Agentstvo.

Only media registered with Roskomnadzor are allowed on MAX, effectively barring many independent outlets, Klimarev said. 

Access to free media “curtailed”

The introduction of the MAX app is just one of the ways Russian authorities are increasing their stranglehold on independent information in the digital space.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, authorities have blocked thousands of websites, including those of independent media, for failing to comply with legislation forbidding “fake news” about the military, among a host of other restrictions.

Meta’s Instagram and Facebook have been banned since 2022, and YouTube and Meta’s WhatsApp were also blocked in February, making them largely inaccessible without circumvention tools.

Hundreds of NGOs, media outlets and independent voices, including CPJ, have also been added to a government list of “undesirable” organizations – a label used to suppress groups that the Kremlin sees as a threat to its narrative control. CPJ, which was not notified of the decision or the reasons behind it, calls on Russia to reverse the ban. 

In 2025, Russia recorded the highest number of internet shutdowns, according to exiled independent news outlet The Moscow Times, and this has continued in 2026 with regular rolling internet shutdowns in major cities. 

“Access to free information is certainly being curtailed and the restrictions on Telegram are not the first but yet another step in that direction,” a journalist, who requested anonymity, told CPJ via Telegram from inside Russia.

Telegram, which is headquartered in Dubai, had 96 million registered users in January and six out of 10 Russians use it daily – the world’s second highest number of users after India.

Users can circumvent restrictions by using VPNs, which route a user’s internet connection through private servers outside Russia, but that has become more complicated because of an intensified crackdown on the use of these networks. 

These challenges, plus the arrival of MAX, could see some Russians lose access to independent news. 

“If you are happy to surf on your Chinese or Russian intranet (Russia’s countrywide alternative to the global internet), where you find ‘all you need’ and have more and more sophisticated apps, why would you need to look outside, beyond the Great Firewall as people say in China, to look for alternatives?” said Prague-based journalist Filip Noubel, who is also deputy director of inVOC, an organization supporting independent Chinese-language media globally.

Journalists told CPJ that they feared MAX could eventually capture a politically disengaged audience, which could be significant should there be further internet restrictions ahead of September parliamentary elections, as MAX will strengthen the state’s ability to manage digital political communications while further limiting space for independent reporting. 

CPJ contacted VK via email seeking comment on MAX  but did not receive a response. 

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