In Belarus, messaging app is cornerstone of protests

Wary of state media, underground activists use Telegram for news and to set up rallies.

MOSCOW — Every day, like clockwork, to-do lists for those protesting against Belarus’ authoritarian leader appear in the popular Telegram messaging app. They lay out goals, give times and locations of rallies with business-like precision, and offer spirited encouragement.

“Today will be one more important day in the fight for our freedom. Tectonic shifts are happening on all fronts, so it’s important not to slow down,” a message in one of Telegram’s channels read Tuesday. “Morning. Expanding the strike … 11:00. Supporting the Kupala [theater] ... 19:00. Gathering at the Independence Square.”

The app has become an indispensable tool in coordinating the unprecedented mass protests that have rocked Belarus since Aug. 9, when election officials announced that President Alexander Lukashenko — whom some call “Europe’s last dictator” — had won a landslide victory to extend his 26-year rule in a vote widely seen as rigged.

Peaceful protesters who poured onto the streets of the capital, Minsk, and other cities were met with stun grenades, rubber bullets and beatings from police.

The opposition candidate, schoolteacher Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, left for Lithuania — under duress, her campaign said — and authorities shut off the internet, leaving Belarusians with almost no access to independent online news outlets or social media.

That’s where Telegram — which often remains available despite internet outages, touts the security of messages shared in the app and has been used in other protest movements — came in. Some of its channels helped unconnected, scattered rallies mature into well-coordinated action.

The people who run the channels, which used to offer political news, now post updates, videos and photos of the turmoil sent in from users, locations of heavy police presence, contacts of human rights activists and calls for new demonstrations — something Belarusian opposition leaders have refrained from doing publicly themselves. Tens of thousands of people all across the country have responded to those calls.

In a matter of days, the channels — NEXTA, NEXTA Live and Belarus of the Brain are the most popular — have become the main method for facilitating the protests, said Franak Viacorka, a Belarusian analyst and nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council.

“The fate of the country has never depended so much on one [piece] of technology,” Viacorka said.

In the days following the vote, NEXTA Live’s audience shot from several hundred thousand followers to over 2 million. NEXTA has more than 700,000. Belarus of the Brain’s following grew from almost 170,000 in late June to over 470,000 this week.

Their influence in a nation of 9.5 million is hard to overestimate, including by the authorities who are pursuing those behind the channels.

Last week, officials opened a criminal probe into NEXTA and its founder, 22year-old blogger Stepan Putilo, on charges of fomenting mass riots — an offense punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Blogger Igor Losik, who founded Belarus of the Brain, was arrested before the election.

“We have indeed become the bullhorn of the situation that is unfolding in Belarus right now,” Putilo said in a recent interview with Lithuanian news outlet Delfi. “We have become the voice of this revolution, but by no will of our own. It just happened.”

Putilo created NEXTA as a YouTube channel in 2015. His profile rose last year when his video “Lukashenko. Criminal Records” was viewed almost 3 million times.

Putilo turned to Telegram in 2018. His two channels focused mostly on Belarusian politics. His team received thousands of messages from users sending in photos, videos and news items each day and posted the most newsworthy, taking pride in often sharing information from sources inside the government or law enforcement.

After the demonstrations began, thousands of messages turned into hundreds of thousands, and the underground operation now appears inundated.

Social media have played major roles in previous uprisings, including in the Arab Spring and antigovernment protests in Hong Kong.

“What’s happening in Belarus right now is kind of a reminder that actually social media can be used in a positive way from a democratic perspective,” said Hans Kundnani, senior research fellow at the Londonbased think tank Chatham House.

Protesters in the streets echoed his sentiment.

“Telegram channels and websites that don’t belong to our government are the main source of information today as we cannot at all rely on state media,” said Roman Semenov, who follows the NEXTA channels. “It’s a Telegram revolution.”