Olga Ivshina

As always, you know, they say that the companies are not following the regulations, not cooperating enough with the Russian authorities.

To be honest, WhatsApp has been significantly slowed down for several weeks now.

And actually, people were quickly migrating to other messengers, which in turn have been slowed down or blocked as well.

Yes, so exactly as you mentioned, you know, it seems that all this big trouble started after the Kremlin has introduced its approved messenger called Max, and they are strongly, strongly, strongly encouraging everyone to join.

Also using, so to say, administrative resources, so many like school chats, kindergarten chats, where teachers inform parents about certain things, have been moved to Max, so people still have to join.

On the other hand, people are very much reluctant because...

There were a lot of independent reviews about Max, and a lot of IT specialists raised significant concerns about data breaches, and it's unclear how much authorities can see and think through that messenger.

So yeah, Russians are trying to use alternative messages, but they're being slowed down or blocked.

So the biggest news of yesterday for the Russian speakers, for people inside Russia, was the fact that

Telegram, another very popular messenger where many people moved after WhatsApp was slowed down.

Telegram, it was significantly slowed down yesterday.

And some experts believe that that's all part of the big strategy of the Kremlin.

Yes, definitely.

Since the start of the invasion, Kremlin has introduced draconian laws restricting freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and also introducing de facto censorship in the media.

That's why people migrated to other platforms, including Telegram, where a lot of

Independent journalists or bloggers were posting the news.

So people trying to diversify their access to information, but they are meeting significant pressure from the Kremlin.

Ghislaine Maxwell is a character that was central to Jeffrey Epstein's operation.

She recently made a deposition in the US where she pleaded the Fifth.

What was your reaction when you saw that?