Impact of the Censorship

Here are some major impacts of the internet censorship as mentioned below.

Blocking George Soros’ Websites

• George Soros is a philanthropist who gives money to help others. He had his own websites those were stopped in Russia after laws were made in late 2015.
• These laws let the Prosecutor General’s Office stop websites they did not like without saying why.

The German Marshall Fund’s Website Stopped

• The German Marshall Fund is a group in America that thinks about things. Their website was blocked in March 2018.
• The Open Russia and the National Endowment for Democracy’s websites were blocked because they were tagged as “undesirable organizations.”

Trying to Stop Smart Voting

• Ahead of the State Duma elections, there were so many efforts made to suppress Alexei Navalny’s Smart Voting website and app.
• The government also blocked some other sites including securing a trademark on “Smart Voting” and pressuring tech companies to censor related content.

Making Internet Control Stronger During the Ukraine Invasion

• During Russia Ukraine war, government made it harder to use the internet.
• They stopped foreign and independent news websites like BBC News and Twitter.
• They also went after people who changed Wikipedia articles about the war.

Arresting a Wikipedia Editor and Going After Wikipedia Articles

• In March 2022, police in Belarus arrested Mark Bernstein, who is known for editing Wikipedia.
• Bernstein was accused by the police of spreading negative information about Russia through his edits.
• Following Bernstein’s arrest, Russia began targeting Wikipedia articles.
• Search engines were instructed by Russian authorities to flag Wikipedia as violating their laws from April to July 2022.

List of Websites Blocked in Russia: According to the digital rights organization Roskomsvoboda, the Russian government blocked over 247,000 web pages in 2022. The Russian government defends its actions and also uses deep packet inspection technology to block the sites. They run a filtering process over the internet, throttle certain connections, and block websites permanently or temporarily.

In this article, we are going to discuss the Websites Blocked in Russia and the Internet censorship in Russia in detail.