At the end of December, the speed of the application dropped by almost 80%.
The Tagansky Court in Moscow is starting a process: Russian users are trying to prove that the fight against fraud should not violate their right to communication.
At the end of December 2025, the situation surrounding popular messengers Telegram and WhatsApp* entered a new stage. While users previously only complained about disruptions, a group of 42 individuals has now decided to defend their right to communication in court. A collective lawsuit was filed in the Tagansky District Court of Moscow against Roskomnadzor and the Ministry of Digital Development. The main demand of the citizens is to recognize the call restrictions imposed by the agencies since last summer as illegal. The plaintiffs believe that such measures violate the constitutional right to privacy of correspondence and freedom of information.
The main argument of the plaintiffs, Reuters reports, is based on a contradiction with the official position of the authorities. Regulators explain the slowdown in the operation of applications as a fight against fraud, however, users refer to data from the Central Bank. According to statistics, most crimes are committed through regular mobile communication and SMS, not through messengers. The lawsuit proposes a milder solution: if someone is afraid of fraudsters, they can enable the blocking of suspicious traffic in the settings themselves, but this should not interfere with everyone else.
At the same time, serious problems have arisen in the operation of WhatsApp. The speed of the application in Russia has dropped by almost 80%, making it nearly impossible to send videos or make calls. The company stated that it would fight for its users and accused the authorities of attempting to leave more than 100 million people without their usual means of communication right before the New Year holidays. In turn, the State Duma and Roskomnadzor do not rule out a complete blocking of the service, calling it a matter of time and compliance with Russian laws.
Roskomnadzor has made extremely serious accusations. The regulator told state media that the WA platform continues to systematically violate the law, having turned into a tool for organizing terrorist acts on the territory of the country and recruiting their perpetrators. According to the agency, it is precisely the inability to fully control correspondence that allows criminals to use the messenger for fraud and other serious crimes. In this regard, the authorities have begun to systematically implement a domestic alternative — the state messenger MAX.
The first serious alarming signals sounded back in August 2025, when Russian users began to complain en masse about the unstable operation of voice calls in WhatsApp. At that time, regulators explained the partial blocking of calls as a necessity to combat telephone fraudsters, however, by November, pressure on the messenger intensified. At the end of autumn, Roskomnadzor issued an official warning about the possibility of a complete shutdown of the service in case of ignoring Russian legislation, which provoked a new wave of disruptions in the transmission of media files and messages.
The culmination occurred on December 22, 2025, when technical restrictions reached a critical level. On that day, a 70–80% drop in the speed of the application was recorded across the country, making usual communication practically impossible.
The Russian lawsuit by 42 activists is not unique on a global scale — it fits into a global trend.
The most vivid example is Brazil, where in 2015–2016, courts repeatedly blocked WhatsApp due to the company's refusal to disclose messaging data. At that time, large-scale protests and counter-lawsuits from civil groups led to the Supreme Court of the country recognizing such disconnections as illegal, calling them a disproportionate blow to the rights of millions of citizens.
A similar struggle unfolded in India when, in 2021, users challenged the messenger's new privacy policy in court, arguing that they should not be forced to choose between personal data and access to a critically important means of communication.
European practice is also rich in examples of collective resistance: there, courts regularly side with citizens, imposing record fines on Meta and protecting users' rights to transparent platform operating conditions without the threat of disconnection.
