Messaging Apps & Geopolitics
Messaging apps are playing an increasingly important role in geopolitics. A look at why and their future.
InAugust of 2024, Pavel Durov, the co-founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram was arrested in France and now faces a number of charges. He was arrested on his private jet, having flown in from Russia, where he is a citizen and Telegram is founded. Private messaging apps are playing an increasingly significant role in geopolitics.
China bas banned most Western messaging platforms, preferring its citizens just use home grown ones like WeChat. Brazil has blocked WhatsApp on several occasions over disputes on sharing data with law enforcement. Signal has stated that if such a thing were to happen to it, they would shutdown in that country.
Yet some of these messaging apps have played and vital role in back-channel communications during times of crisis and conflict. It is purported that WhatsApp played a role in 2013–15 between Iranian and American diplomats during the nuclear deal talks.
In the 2019 tensions between India and Pakistan WhatsApp was used by officials on both sides unofficially to help ease the crisis. Some reports have said that Saudi Arabian and Israeli diplomats used WhatsApp for quiet, back-channel diplomacy, negotiating deals…
