Russia looks at different ways of home to Instagram, TikTok, Zoom | Tech Reddy

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Russian software developers have released the first versions of home options to Instagram, TikTok and Zoom, the RBC news website said Thursday.

Instagram was banned by the Russian authorities after the invasion of Ukraine, while TikTok and Zoom banned their services in the country.

The proposed platforms – Looky, Sunlight Play and Dion – are part of the Russian government’s efforts to fulfill the orders of President Vladimir Putin. reserve for the use of foreign computers in critical infrastructure by 2025.

The projects are competing for government funding of up to 37.1 billion rubles ($614 million) over the next two years.

Looky markets itself as a “better version” of Instagram, the popular site that was banned in Russia when a court branded its parent company Meta “extremist” in March.

The developers of the app claim that they can download photos, stories and followers of Instagram users on its platform.

Their ambitious plan is to recover one-third of the 110 billion rubles ($1.8 billion) in revenue lost by small and medium businesses due to the ban on Instagram, and to expand to Belarus, Kazakhstan and the UAE during Looky’s tenure. 2024-25.

A Looky spokesperson told RBC they expect a government decision-making body to decide whether to fund the project by the end of 2022.

Sunlight Play, which RBC cited as an example of TikTok, describes itself as a social network that “ensures the power of data to work with young people.”

Dion and TrueConf Enterprise 2.0 want to replace Zoom, Skype and Google Meet for Russian business enterprises, while Pochta 2.0 is a business email system that says it plans to pay its own bills.

Five social media projects received initial government approval last month and are awaiting decisions on government funding, RBC said on condition of anonymity.

A cabinet spokesman denied the claim, saying that only two projects had been collected, and that they would cover 1.2 billion rubles ($19.8 billion) for themselves.

Experts interviewed by RBC say that they are skeptical of the power of domestic social media and video surveillance, which encourages the government to support the former, rather than fund new products from time to time.

German Klimenko, the founder of the Liveinternet media platform and a former Internet adviser to Putin, derided the newly selected projects as “a mockery of the industry.”

“Even if these social media start to work, they may have problems with advertising results,” Klimenko told RBC.

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