Russia launches its own version of Instagram, adding to its list of knockoff social media platforms

• Russian developers have launched an Instagram alternative called Rossgram
• But experts say, like other state-owned services, it is unlikely to be used by the masses.

Russian developers have launched an Instagram alternative called Rossgram, after the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine and international backlash has made it unclear if Instagram has a future in the country.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine at the beginning of February, global social media companies including Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook have either blocked or restricted their services in the country, or have been banned outright.

Rossgram joins a slate of Russian versions of major platforms that seek to mimic larger and more popular social media companies, resulting in a landscape of Russian knockoffs that often struggle to attract users while raising questions about how much access the Kremlin has to users' data.

Even before the invasion, experts say that Russia already had generational and economic gaps in how people in Russia get their news and the social media networks they use. Recent bans and restrictions on social media use have exacerbated these divides, with younger tech-savvy people being more likely to work around restrictions, rather than turning to potentially invasive state controlled services.

Russia's social media knockoffs are often about government control

Russia has been trying to coax internet users to turn to its own versions of popular sites, such as YouTube knockoff RuTube, for years. Authorities this year offered online creators the equivalent of $1,700 a month to move their content to RuTube, according to Coda Story, attempting to make up for its minuscule audience.

A 2021 report by the Levada Center, an independent polling organization, found that YouTube is used by 37% of Russians, Instagram by 34%, and TikTok by 16%. But some native platforms hold influence too. Out of Russia's 70 million active social media users, according to research by Linkfluence, a market research platform, 83% use a social media platform similar to Facebook called VKontakte, and 55% use another called OdnoKlassniki.

According to Alyssa Demus, an associate international and defense researcher at Rand corporation, Russia has long been building up an ecosystem of alternative social media platforms. But people tend to be more skeptical and cautious when using them out of fear that the government is involved in their operations and users' information isn't secure.

"Either Russia has a hand in the building of the platform from this start, or they strong arm or co-opt whatever is popular later," Demus told Insider. "I know there's significant use of platforms like WhatsApp or others that are believed to be encrypted for that very reason — so that there can be open communication without the fear of reprisal."

Russia has also enacted laws to exert influence on non-Russian social media platforms, including passing legislation stating companies need to place their servers for Russian accounts on Russian territory.

"Presumably so they can then sort of meddle and do whatever kind of surveillance they need to," Demus said.

TikTok's refusal to cooperate with this law is what led to the development of a video sharing platform called Yappy at the end of 2021. It was developed with support of the Innopraktika Foundation, a research institute with clients such as oil giant Rosneft and nuclear energy company Rosatom, which Putin's alleged daughter Katerina Tikhonova runs, according to the Moscow Times.

The Russian government has spent years attempting to either recreate or co-opt popular platforms. In 2014, VKontakte's founder Pavel Durov — often referred to in media as Russia's version of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg — was driven out of his company by a coup after the platform was being increasingly used by opposition groups against Putin.

"He left the country for some reason, and then essentially was voted out as CEO by the board," Demus said. "And then subsequently the Russian government took over."

VKontakte and OdnoKlassniki, often shortened to VK and OK, are still very entrenched in the lives of Russian people, Demus added, but they tend to be used with a "growing understanding that anything Russia touches has the potential to land you in jail."

There's a huge generational, educational, and economic gaps in how Russian people get their news

As in the United States, there is also a generational divide in how Russians use different social media platforms and the various demographics associated with each. Younger generations, researchers say, tend to be more attracted to global platforms such as Instagram and Twitter while more older Russians use VK and OK.

"There's a huge generational gap in Russia, not just with social media platforms, but in where they go for their news," Mary Blankenship, a policy researcher at Brookings Mountain West of the University of Nevada, told Insider.

According to the Levada Center report, television is where most Russian people get their news, but its dominance is declining — dropping from 90% to 62% in five years. Younger generations are more likely to get their news on social media sites, and use virtual private networks (VPNs) to access sites that have been blocked by the government. The ability to use international platforms with less government control also results in access to media that's more critical of Putin and the Kremlin.

"Typically, the users that are older, that are less wealthy, less educated, and are in rural areas, support Russia and are way more aligned with Russian beliefs and rhetoric about the war in Ukraine than the people who are younger, wealthier, and live in urban areas," she said. "A lot of that has to do with the access to information that they get."

Younger people are less likely to believe Kremlin propaganda, Blankenship said, but are still susceptible to social media platforms reinforcing beliefs and narrowing the range of opinion they see.

"There are a lot of different echo chambers within social media, no matter what political issue or political leaning you are," she said. " You eventually create this bubble of people that are aligned with your views."

Russian speakers who believe the conspiracy theories and propaganda coming from the Kremlin will have their beliefs confirmed by other users sharing those same views, she said. For Russian people who are critical of the government and distrust its disinformation campaigns, Demus said, watching propaganda thrive as platforms with freedom of speech diminish must be "terrifying."

"They're becoming even more oppressed in their own country and have fewer civil liberties and less of a voice," she said. "But they're also being villainized by the world. It's a really tough position to be in."