A group of Russian lawmakers has submitted draft legislation to ban VPN and Internet anonymizers that allow users to gain access to blocked information resources, making it possible to circumvent Internet censorship.
According to these Duma deputies, the country’s ability to police the Internet is hindered by such technologies as well as by search engines which provide links to banned content.
Dmitry Marinichev, Russia’s presidential Internet commissioner, warned that Russian officials will be unable to differentiate between VPNs used for commercial purposes and VPNs used to circumvent censorship.
As reported by online publication Meduza, he criticized the Duma’s proposed ban on VPNs and anonymizers, calling it “madness” that “runs counter to common sense.”
Earlier this year Roskomnadzor, the Russian telecom and Internet regulator, has already begun to put pressure on online anonymizers and VPN services while the Russian parliament passed a new law to set fines for Internet service providers (ISPs) who fail to restrict access to blacklisted websites.
Dozens of thousands of sites or pages are currently blocked in Russia. Among them are DailyMotion, Linkedin and Pornhub, as East-West Digital News reported previously.
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