The Russian media regulator – Roskomnadzor – yesterday Friday ordered the blocking of Facebook. The Russian authorities accuse the social media of blocking media close to Russian power, such as the RT channel and the Sputnik site, in Europe.
There remains the use of a VPN which allows you to connect to the service. Meta confirmed the implementation of blocking measures, deploring that “millions of ordinary Russians will soon be deprived of reliable information”.
Note that Facebook is not a widely used platform in Russia. It is frequented by only 7.5 million Russians, according to eMarketer.
The other tools of the Meta group, starting with WhatsApp, continue to be accessible from Russia.
Russian authorities have also announced that they are starting to restrict access to Twitter.
New Russian information law
On Friday, Vladimir Putin signed a new law punishing up to 15 years in prison for spreading information aimed at “discrediting” military forces.
The independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta said it was “forced to delete a lot of content” to avoid sanctions, but wanted to “continue to work”.
Roskomnadzor had previously announced that it had restricted access to the BBC, German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW), independent Russian site Meduza (based in Riga, Latvia), Radio Svoboda, Russian branch of RFE/RL, or again at Voice of America.
Tech giants quit Russia, under heavy criticism
The Bloomberg News agency and the BBC (British public broadcasting) have announced that they are suspending the activity of their journalists, and the American news channel CNN the broadcasting of its programs in Russia.
In addition, on Friday, an American Internet service provider, Cogent Communications, announced that it had terminated its contracts with its customers in Russia.
Cogent Communications transports around 25% of the world’s Internet traffic. Company CEO Dave Schaeffer told the Washington Post that he didn’t want to “hurt anyone,” but he also didn’t want to “allow the Russian government to have one more tool in their arsenal of war.” .
Cogent is one of the world’s largest Internet backbone companies and has dozens of customers in Russia, including state-owned telecommunications giant Rostelecom. According to the Washington Post, Cogent has “direct connections to more than 6,000 network blocks, or large Internet address blocks, operated by Rostelecom, one of the largest blocks in the United States.”
The measure will cause slowdowns for Russian internet users and the company admitted that it is “gradually” terminating the activities of Russian companies because they ask for a few days to find other internet sources.
The terminations began on Friday, according to a letter from the company that specifically cites the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the reason.
“In light of the unwarranted and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Cogent is terminating all of your services effective March 4, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. GMT,” the letter reads. “The economic sanctions put in place following the invasion and the increasingly uncertain security situation make it impossible for Cogent to continue providing services to you. All ports and IP address space provided by Cogent will be claimed from the date of termination.”
The decision sparked a lot of reactions, with many wondering what the point of cutting off the Russian population from the internet could be.
WTF Cogent? Cutting Russians off from internet access cuts them off from independent news sources and the ability to organize anti-war protests. Don’t do Putin’s dirty work for him. https://t.co/uqbgOFYWX9
Cogent’s decision is misguided. Cutting off the Russian people from the global Internet harms those who seek to obtain and share the truth. Including many Wikipedians contributing to the page about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite government threats. https://t.co/sBPQfXe8Nz https://t.co/ma5zJVQPy6
Rebecca MacKinnon, vice president of Global Advocacy at Wikimedia, explained on Twitter that the measure would not actually prevent Russian hackers from launching cyberattacks and would only hurt people who seek out and provide alternative sources of information.
“State-sponsored malicious actors seeking to launch cyberattacks on Ukraine and spread disinformation campaigns will have the resources and technology to continue doing so,” said MacKinnon. “As usual, civil society groups at odds with the government and citizens seeking the truth are the main victims.”
Cogent joins dozens of major tech companies that have ceased Russia-related activities.
Tech giants like Apple and Microsoft have halted product sales in Russia.
ICANN refuses to disconnect Russia from its TLDs and SSL certificates
On Thursday, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) denied a request from Ukraine to revoke Russia’s top-level domains (TLDs), such as .ru, .рф and .su as well as SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates associated with Russia.
ICANN President Göran Marby said in a letter to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov that globally agreed policies “do not provide for ICANN to take unilateral action to disconnect these domains as you ask”.