Roskomnadzor, the Russian telecom and Internet regulator, is putting pressure on online anonymizers and VPN services to restrict Russians’ access to blacklisted sites.
The agency’s spokesman Vadim Ampelonsky stated that some anonymizers and VPNs were already cooperating with the government, while others which did not comply with regional laws were illegal in Russia and would be banned.
But the Russin media have reported that Roskomnadzor’s pressure may go even further. Markus Saar, general director of HideMy.name, a VPN based in the provincial region of Bashkortostan, has told Vedomosti that the regulator delayed unblocking their site, even after all of the litigious content had been removed.
Instead, Roskomnadzor formally asked HideMy.name about the possible technical means to restrict their users’ access to all content blacklisted by the regulator. Such inquiry exceeds Roskomnadzor’s powers, believes Saar.
More than 100 VPN sites and services are currently blocked within Russia, Vedomosti reports.
Internet service providers (ISPs) are also under pressure. In February, the Russian parliament passed a new law to set fines for those who fail to restrict access to blacklisted websites. Under previous legislation ISPs were legally required to restrict access to banned sites, but no punishments were set out for those who fail to comply, as reported by The Moscow Times.
More than 60,000 sites or pages are currently blocked in Russia. Among them are DailyMotion, Linkedin and Pornhub, as East-West Digital News reported previously.
In its latest annual report “Internet Freedom in 2016: Under martial law,” Russian NGO Agora registered 24,000 cases in which some form of online content was banned in the course of last year.
