Reposting my statement submission on the post to provide additional context on the article and topic:
>New research conducted by a team at the University of Michigan reveals the surveillance capabilities of Max, the Russian government-sponsored superapp that has colonized tens of millions of Russian electronic devices since its initial launch nearly 18 months ago, unveiling one of the most terrifying spywares to date.
>Max was developed by VKontakte, the flagship Russian social media company in collaboration with the government to equip personal devices with a homegrown “super-app” – a software providing services like a social media platform, networking, payments, banking, messaging, electronic signatures, and digital ID. It was officially launched in March 2025, was made a default pre-installed app on new phones in September 2025, and has since been installed on tens of millions of phones across the country.
>Touted as a practical tool for administrative procedures and personal payments, the app was widely advertised by the government, entertainers and the media, and was gradually imposed through peer pressure and the elimination of alternatives – it notably became a necessary tool for millions of teachers, students and schoolchildren after university facilities like classrooms, restaurants and dormitories had their access locked unless the individual could present a QR code generated by the app.
>Researchers who have worked on the Russian government’s increasing control upon their citizenry and their lockdown of the information space show that Max is effectively a backdoor app able to screenshot conversations, access banking information, inject code through its “mini-apps” and even impersonate the user in outside interactions without their consent or their knowledge.
>Max’s rollout was combined with the elimination of competitors in Russia, which was until the war in Ukraine relatively open and connected to the global Internet: Meta’s platforms like Facebook, Whatsapp or Instagram were fully banned earlier this year, and the developers aim to replace the flagship messaging app Telegram, coupled with outages and restrictions on Internet and mobile networks in selected areas of Russia – officially to protect Russians from Ukrainian drone attacks, in practice to replace global access with whitelisted websites and apps. Nearly 2 million websites and 500 VPNs are now blocked in Russia, amid a sharp escalation of political repression – there are now more political prisoners in Russia than at any time since the end of Stalin’s reign.
>According to t[he researchers Françoise Daucé and Tanya Lokshina](https://www.franceinfo.fr/monde/russie/la-situation-va-de-mal-en-pis-en-russie-la-societe-toujours-plus-verrouillee-a-l-heure-des-elections-legislatives_8194973.html) [fr], Putin’s regime is now attempting to fully lock down the Russian informational space to isolate the country from the outside world, driven by paranoia over the discontent of the Russian population, who is increasingly feeling the effects of the war in Ukraine through fuel shortages and rising inflation – and particularly in the ramp-up to October’s legislative elections, where Russian citizens may demonstrate their lack of confidence in the regime by not turning up to the polls after the elimination of most opposition forces.
>Beyond the practices of the Putinist regime in its political repression and state control of the Russian citizenry, researchers warn that the ease with which Russia has reached in under a decade a “level of digital authoritarianism that China took 35 years to reach” should be a wake-up call about the dangers of state-controlled Internet and government-sponsored super-apps, which are already eyed by governments in Iran or India.
Of course, Russia has a long history of hyper-repressive state surveillance, but the idea of rolling out government super-apps and isolating the national Internet ecosystem from the global networks to better control information is also emerging in Western democracies.
There’s a sort of dilemma over the realities of international relations – why should we keep our informational spaces open to disinformation campaigns and destabilization efforts from hostile powers when said hostile powers are locking down their own spaces to ban us from reaching their citizens? We’ve all seen how efficient these online disinformation efforts are over the past decade, but I’m wary of applying the principles of defensive democracy on that field.
1 Comment
Reposting my statement submission on the post to provide additional context on the article and topic:
>New research conducted by a team at the University of Michigan reveals the surveillance capabilities of Max, the Russian government-sponsored superapp that has colonized tens of millions of Russian electronic devices since its initial launch nearly 18 months ago, unveiling one of the most terrifying spywares to date.
>Max was developed by VKontakte, the flagship Russian social media company in collaboration with the government to equip personal devices with a homegrown “super-app” – a software providing services like a social media platform, networking, payments, banking, messaging, electronic signatures, and digital ID. It was officially launched in March 2025, was made a default pre-installed app on new phones in September 2025, and has since been installed on tens of millions of phones across the country.
>Touted as a practical tool for administrative procedures and personal payments, the app was widely advertised by the government, entertainers and the media, and was gradually imposed through peer pressure and the elimination of alternatives – it notably became a necessary tool for millions of teachers, students and schoolchildren after university facilities like classrooms, restaurants and dormitories had their access locked unless the individual could present a QR code generated by the app.
>Researchers who have worked on the Russian government’s increasing control upon their citizenry and their lockdown of the information space show that Max is effectively a backdoor app able to screenshot conversations, access banking information, inject code through its “mini-apps” and even impersonate the user in outside interactions without their consent or their knowledge.
>Max’s rollout was combined with the elimination of competitors in Russia, which was until the war in Ukraine relatively open and connected to the global Internet: Meta’s platforms like Facebook, Whatsapp or Instagram were fully banned earlier this year, and the developers aim to replace the flagship messaging app Telegram, coupled with outages and restrictions on Internet and mobile networks in selected areas of Russia – officially to protect Russians from Ukrainian drone attacks, in practice to replace global access with whitelisted websites and apps. Nearly 2 million websites and 500 VPNs are now blocked in Russia, amid a sharp escalation of political repression – there are now more political prisoners in Russia than at any time since the end of Stalin’s reign.
>According to t[he researchers Françoise Daucé and Tanya Lokshina](https://www.franceinfo.fr/monde/russie/la-situation-va-de-mal-en-pis-en-russie-la-societe-toujours-plus-verrouillee-a-l-heure-des-elections-legislatives_8194973.html) [fr], Putin’s regime is now attempting to fully lock down the Russian informational space to isolate the country from the outside world, driven by paranoia over the discontent of the Russian population, who is increasingly feeling the effects of the war in Ukraine through fuel shortages and rising inflation – and particularly in the ramp-up to October’s legislative elections, where Russian citizens may demonstrate their lack of confidence in the regime by not turning up to the polls after the elimination of most opposition forces.
>Beyond the practices of the Putinist regime in its political repression and state control of the Russian citizenry, researchers warn that the ease with which Russia has reached in under a decade a “level of digital authoritarianism that China took 35 years to reach” should be a wake-up call about the dangers of state-controlled Internet and government-sponsored super-apps, which are already eyed by governments in Iran or India.
Of course, Russia has a long history of hyper-repressive state surveillance, but the idea of rolling out government super-apps and isolating the national Internet ecosystem from the global networks to better control information is also emerging in Western democracies.
There’s a sort of dilemma over the realities of international relations – why should we keep our informational spaces open to disinformation campaigns and destabilization efforts from hostile powers when said hostile powers are locking down their own spaces to ban us from reaching their citizens? We’ve all seen how efficient these online disinformation efforts are over the past decade, but I’m wary of applying the principles of defensive democracy on that field.