Russia is apparently working on its own version of TikTok. The nation’s leading media holding, which is backed by the state’s energy giant Gazprom, is planning on launching a short video sharing application similar to the popular social media platform.
Gazprom-Media CEO, Alexander Zharov, confirmed the news and stated that the holding had purchased a service called “Ya Molodets” (“I am great”). According to Zharov, the app was developed with support from the Innopraktika foundation, which is an organization run by one of Vladimir Putin’s alleged daughters Katerina Tikhonova. The media firm will “use the project’s software to speed up the creation of a new video service for Russian bloggers.”
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As per the NDTV report, the CEO said that the app will be launching within two years and will support short portrait videos, similar to ByteDance’s TikTok. For those unaware, Gazprom-Media is one of Russia’s largest media organizations and owns a number of the top television channels and a range of radio stations as well. The news of the upcoming TikTok alternative also arrives as the government is tightening its reins around the internet and platforms like YouTube that offers independent sources of news.
Zharov further added that the company has been working on the platform for “about a year to modernize it and make it no worse than YouTube in terms of tools.” Notably, the country is also working on RuNet, which is essentially a nationwide intranet. This would enable it to control both the platforms and the content being portrayed on it.
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