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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Russian developers have launched an <keyword id="11892996" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="instagram" source="Orion">Instagram</keyword> alternative called <keyword id="13525187" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="rossgram" source="Orion">Rossgram</keyword></li><li>But experts say, like other state-owned services, it is unlikely to be used by the masses.</li></ul>Russian developers have launched <a href="https://www.insider.com/russia-is-launching-an-instagram-clone-called-rossgram-following-ban-2022-3">an Instagram alternative</a> 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 <keyword id="11894337" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="russia" source="Orion">Russia</keyword>'s invasion of Ukraine at the beginning of February, global <keyword id="11895013" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="social-media" source="Orion">social media</keyword> 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 <keyword id="11893589" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news" source="Orion">news</keyword> 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.<h2>Russia's social media knockoffs are often about government control</h2>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, <a href="https://www.codastory.com/newsletters/russia-rutube/">according to Coda Story</a>, attempting to make up for its minuscule audience.A<a href="https://www.levada.ru/2021/08/05/rossijskij-medialandshaft-2021/"> 2021 report by the Levada Center</a>, 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 <a href="https://www.linkfluence.com/blog/russian-social-media-landscape">research by Linkfluence</a>, a market research platform, 83% use a social media platform similar to Facebook called <keyword id="13525188" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="vkontakte" source="Orion">VKontakte</keyword>, and 55% use another called <keyword id="13525189" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="odnoklassniki" source="Orion">OdnoKlassniki</keyword>.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 href="https://marketresearchtelecast.com/russia-launches-tiktok-alternative-yappy/215560/">a video sharing platform</a> 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, <a href="https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2021/11/30/russia-launches-homemade-tiktok-alternative-a75701">according to the Moscow Times</a>.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 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/russia-vkontakte-ceo-idINL6N0NE1HS20140422">driven out of his company by a coup</a> 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."<h2>There's a huge generational, educational, and economic gaps in how Russian people get their news</h2>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, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/12/russians-seek-to-evade-social-media-ban-with-virtual-private-networks">and use virtual private networks (VPNs)</a> 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."

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

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The investigative news website Bellingcat reported on the Texas mall shooter's apparent neo-Nazi beliefs.</li><li>Right-wing commentators on Twitter suggested that it was fake news, and Elon Musk called it a "psyop."</li></ul>Twitter appears to have limited the reach of Bellingcat, an investigative news website, as its main account no longer appears in the app's search tool.It's unclear when exactly the change was made but Eliot Higgins, the Bellingcat founder, first <a href="https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1656708924656041985" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tweeted</a> about it Thursday. Bellingcat's main handle did not appear in several searches made by Insider on Twitter Friday.Higgins' first tweet about the account being hidden came three days after Elon Musk began spreading doubt over the site's investigation into Mauricio Garcia, the gunman who <a href="https://www.insider.com/police-respond-shooting-allen-premium-outets-mall-near-dallas-texas-2023-5">killed eight people at a mall in Allen, Texas on Sunday</a>.<a href="https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2023/05/09/tracing-the-odnoklassniki-profile-of-the-texas-mall-shooter/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bellingcat reported</a> that Garcia had tattoos of a swastika and other Nazi symbols, and <a href="https://twitter.com/AricToler/status/1655651280096747524" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a> about being a white supremacist on Odnoklassniki (OK), a Russian social media site."Didn't the story come from Bellingcat, which literally specializes in psychological operations?" Musk <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1655977617583898637" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tweeted</a>. "I don't want to hurt their feelings, but this is either the weirdest story ever or a very bad psyop!"The Twitter boss tweeted about the investigation several times, like <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1655716696521416704" target="_blank" rel="noopener">replying</a> "Odd" to a conspiratorial tweet from an account called "End Wokeness."Bellingcat has also been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/feb/20/eliot-higgins-people-accuse-me-of-working-for-the-cia" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accused</a> of working for the CIA, a claim Higgins has repeatedly <a href="https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1464600059862003712" target="_blank" rel="noopener">denied</a>.The site reported that it discovered Garcia's OK account after investigators disclosed its existence to the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/08/us/texas-mall-shooting-mauricio-garcia.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York Times</a>. The shooter had also posted legal documents identifying himself.Bellingcat has the gold checkmark for businesses on Twitter, but Higgins <a href="https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1655977352982036482" target="_blank" rel="noopener">withdrew</a> his own blue tick in the wake of accusations that its Texas mall shooter story was a "psyop."Psychological operations are broadly defined as military operations designed to influence people's emotions and political beliefs through propaganda, but the term "psyop" has been co-opted frequently by online conspiracy theorists to accuse the US government of false flag operations like terror attacks and mass shootings.Aric Toler, the Bellingcat journalist who reported the story, also <a href="https://twitter.com/AricToler/status/1656720637224779776" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that the site's account hadn't been appearing on TweetDeck searches for weeks.In April, he co-wrote the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/13/world/europe/jack-teixeira-pentagon-leak.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New York Times article</a> which revealed the identity of Jake Teixeira, the National Guard airman who <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/discord-members-say-pentagon-leak-suspect-wanted-to-show-off-2023-4">leaked hundreds of classified documents on Discord</a>. That report involved matching up social media images of Teixeira's house with the counter seen in the background of the leaked document pictures to identify him. But with Garcia, Toler said it was "easily the most open-and-shut case I've seen in my life."Insider contacted Twitter for comment. The company responded with an automated message that didn't address the inquiry.

Twitter appeared to limit the reach of investigative news site Bellingcat days after Elon Musk suggested its Texas mall shooter investigation was a 'psyop'

<ul><li>Over 28 fake extensions disguised as aids for <keyword id="6354576" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="facebook">Facebook</keyword>, <keyword id="819905" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Instagram">Instagram</keyword>, <keyword id="196143" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Vimeo">Vimeo</keyword>, and others are infecting <keyword id="182214" type="COMPANY" weightage="20" keywordseo="Google-Chrome">Google Chrome</keyword> and Edge browsers with <keyword id="54201" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Malware">malware</keyword>.</li><li>A report by Avast Intelligence Security estimates that over 3 million people around the world have been affected by these malicious extensions capable of redirecting URLs, collecting <keyword id="74417" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="personal-information">personal information</keyword>, and tracking your location. </li><li>Google and Microsoft are currently investigating the issue, but the extensions remain available on the Chrome Web Store and the Microsoft Edge Add-ons portal. </li></ul>Immensely popular and innocently disguised Facebook, Vimeo and Instagram extensions on your web browser may actually be malware, according to the internet security provider <a href="https://press.avast.com/third-party-browser-extensions-from-instagram-facebook-vimeo-and-others-infected-with-malware">Avast</a>. Especially if you’re a part of the majority using Google Chrome. <table style="border-width: initial; border-style: none; width: 468pt; table-layout: fixed;"></colgroup><tbody><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Browser </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Number of malicious extensions </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Google Chrome </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">15 </td></tr><tr><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">Edge </td><td style="border-left:solid #000000 1pt;border-right:solid #000000 1pt;border-bottom:solid #000000 1pt;border-top:solid #000000 1pt;vertical-align:top;padding:5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt;overflow:hidden;overflow-wrap:break-word;">13 </td></tr></tbody></table> The malware is affecting around three million people around the world as per install numbers and can ‘hijack’ your URL. It means that the extension can track every time you click on a new link and alert the hacker. The hacker then has the option to redirect you to a new URL of his choosing, rather than sending you to your real destination. And, as with most crimes, there’s a monetary motive at play. Redirecting user traffic to ads and phishing sites by the millions can yield a pretty steady income stream. "For every redirection to a third party domain, the cybercriminals would receive a payment," said the report by Avast Threat Intelligence. Malware extensions are tracking everything you do online Even though the end goal is getting more revenue off of ads, the malicious extensions on Google Chrome and Edge are capable of collecting data as well. According to Avast, these extensions can collect personal data like birth dates, email addresses, and device information. This includes even the most minute details like first sign-in time, last login time, name of the device, operating system, used browser and its version, and even IP addresses. Stealing an IP address or knowing your login time may not seem like a big deal. But, collectively, that information points to your approximate geographical location as well as your daily routine. Even though Avast only discovered these extensions a month ago, evidence indicates that some of them have been on the rampage since at least December 2018. "Our hypothesis is that either the extensions were deliberately created with the malware built-in, or the author waited for the extensions to become popular, and then pushed an update containing the malware," said Avast malware researcher <a href="https://press.avast.com/third-party-browser-extensions-from-instagram-facebook-vimeo-and-others-infected-with-malware">Jan Rubín</a> explaining that the origin story of these extensions remains elusive. "It could also be that the author sold the original extensions to someone else after creating them, and then the buyer introduced the malware afterwards," Rubin added. Microsoft and Google are currently looking into Avast's findings but, for now, these extensions remain available on the Chrome Web Store and the Microsoft Edge Add-ons portal. Full list of extensions infected with Malware on Google Chrome and Edge: <ol><li>Direct Message for Instagram</li><li>Direct Message for Instagram™</li><li>DM for Instagram</li><li>Invisible mode for Instagram Direct Message</li><li>Downloader for Instagram</li><li>Instagram Download Video &amp; Image</li><li>App Phone for Instagram</li><li>App Phone for Instagram</li><li>Stories for Instagram</li><li>Universal Video Downloader</li><li>Universal Video Downloader</li><li>Video Downloader for FaceBook™</li><li>Video Downloader for FaceBook™</li><li>Vimeo™ Video Downloader</li><li>Vimeo™ Video Downloader</li><li>Volume Controller</li><li>Zoomer for Instagram and FaceBook</li><li>VK UnBlock. Works fast.</li><li>Odnoklassniki UnBlock. Works quickly.</li><li>Upload photo to Instagram™</li><li>Spotify Music Downloader</li><li>Stories for Instagram</li><li>Upload photo to Instagram™</li><li>Pretty Kitty, The Cat Pet</li><li>Video Downloader for YouTube</li><li>SoundCloud Music Downloader</li><li>The New York Times News</li><li>Instagram App with Direct Message DM</li></ol>SEE ALSO:<a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/thelife/personalities/news/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg-and-reliance-industries-mukesh-ambani-spoke-but-had-no-chemistry/articleshow/79739547.cms">Zuckerberg spoke to Ambani but there was no chemistry — even with a multi-million dollar partnership between them</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/defense/news/india-inaugurates-new-railway-line-with-bangladesh-to-save-its-chickens-neck-from-china-on-vijay-diwas/articleshow/79750869.cms">After 55 years, India will inaugurate a new railway line with Bangladesh to save its ‘Chicken’s Neck’ from China</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/science/environment/news/supercomputer-shows-tropical-cyclones-hitting-india-are-going-get-more-destructive-that-is-until-the-flooding-starts/articleshow/79764803.cms">Supercomputer shows tropical cyclones hitting India are going get more destructive — that is until the flooding starts</a>

Fake Instagram, Facebook, and Vimeo extensions on Google Chrome can ‘hijack’ your URL, steal personal information and track your location

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

Lindsay Dodgson

Twitter appeared to limit the reach of investigative news site Bellingcat days after Elon Musk suggested its Texas mall shooter investigation was a 'psyop'

Pete Syme

Fake Instagram, Facebook, and Vimeo extensions on Google Chrome can ‘hijack’ your URL, steal personal information and track your location

Prabhjote Gill

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