Russia has been regularly fining Google, Facebook, and other U.S. platforms for not removing links that link to material that supposedly violates Russian law. But with the invasion of Ukraine, the censorship has escalated dramatically. I had started watching and testing it a bit a few days ago, too — to see what sites I could still get to using a Russian IP address and what I couldn’t get to. The ability to reach sites rapidly disappeared, and as one paper reported, there was already a growing demand for VPN services in Russia. At this point, Russia has banned Twitter and Facebook, and there are many people in Russia who have no idea of the bald-faced “Big Lies” they are being told by their government. Many actually believe and support their government — even when their own relatives in Ukraine try to tell them and show them what is going on there.
Not all news outlets in Russia are cooperating with the state. Some have actually shut down rather than have to lie to the public.
Andy Maxwell reports:
Russia’s determination to control the minds of its citizens is proceeding full force. Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russian telecoms regulator Roscomnadzor has forced Google to delist tens of thousands of new URLs that link to VPN resources providing access to ‘banned’ content. This includes foreign and local media outlets that refuse to regurgitate state propaganda.
Read Andy’s piece on TorrentFreak for more of the history of how Russia started building a censorship system years ago, and what has happened recently. As of yesterday, this site and its companion site were not banned in Russia, but that, of course, can change in a heartbeat.