Alexander Zharov, the head of the telecom and Internet regulator Roskomnadzor, said in an interview with Interfax that nine VPN services may be blocked on Russian territory “within a month” if they do not comply with the federal censorship agency’s demands. Roskomnadzor contacted each of the VPN providers in question at the end of March 2019 to demand that …
Delivery Club, a food delivery service owned by the Mail.Ru Group, has launched a new outdoor advertising campaign in Moscow, papering streets, subway cars, and train stations with posters that show couriers smiling beneath descriptions of their other careers and personal lives. The ads have been a laughing stock on social media because the delivery people working …
In April, Bloomberg added Igor and Dmitry Bukhman to its list of US dollar billionaires. The brothers, born in the northwest Russian city of Vologda, founded a video game company out of their hometown in 2004. Now, Playrix, which employs more than 1,000 employees and entertains about 30 million users every day with popular games like Homescapes and Township. The Bukhmans …
In the last seven years, the Russian government has drastically tightened its regulation of the Internet, and it has shown no signs of slowing down: on April 16, the State Duma passed a new law enabling the isolation of the Russian segment of the Internet from the World Wide Web. Opposition to the government’s onslaught …
How advocacy group Roskomsvoboda emerged in Russia to combat Internet censorship Read More
In 2018, the Internet contributed 3.9 trillion rubles ($61.1 billion) to the Russian economy — up 11% from the previous year — according to an impressive report about Russia’s Internet economy and regulation released yesterday by the Russian Association of Electronic Communications. E-commerce generated a large chunk of this income — about 1.95 trillion rubles …
In 2018, Internet contributed $61 billion to Russia’s national economy Read More
Yesterday, as the lower house of Parliament adopted in third reading a controversial law to “ensure the safe and sustainable functioning” of the Internet in Russia, the head of Internet regulator and censor Roskomnadzor compared the bill to nuclear weapons. “This is a pretty formidable weapon, but I hope that, like the nuclear weapons several …
New Internet isolation bill is “a pretty formidable weapon,” says Russian Internet censor Read More
Yesterday the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, adopted in second reading a legislation designed to “ensure the safe and sustainable functioning” of the Internet in Russia. Lawmakers say the law will defend the country against foreign aggression, serving as insurance, in case Russia’s global Internet access is shut off from abroad. Supporters of …
Russian lawmakers adopt final version of new ‘Internet isolation’ law Read More
Roskomnadzor, the Internet and telecom regulator, has blocked roughly 1,000 hyperlinks to different Internet resources mentioning VTB Bank, the bank’s president, Andrey Kostin, and TV news anchor Nailya Asker-Zade. As reported by the Russian media, the Internet freedom project Roskomsvoboda found that Roskomnadzor is enforcing two court rulings handed down last fall. According to legal records, VTB …
Russia’s Internet regulator blocks a thousand websites that mention a prominent banker Read More
The Prosecutor General’s office has reportedly requested Roskomnadzor, the Internet regulator, to take steps to delete online news stories about graffiti that used offensive language to describe President Vladimir Putin. The authorities thus applied for the first time a new law that penalizes online expressions of “contempt” for society, state symbols and the authorities. On …
Anti-Putin graffiti triggers first enforcement of new Internet censorship law Read More
Roskomnadzor, the agency responsible for communications regulation and censorship in Russia, announced today that it contacted a number of VPN services to request that they subscribe to the agency’s registry of websites that are banned from distribution on Russian territory. Though Roskomnadzor has blocked VPN services before and asked Internet service providers to comply with its registry of blocked …
Russian authorities demand that VPN services comply with censorship policies Read More
Next month, the State Duma will likely vote on a second reading of legislation drafted by lawmakers Lyudmila Bokova, Andrey Klishas and Andrey Lugovoy that would guard against and simultaneously facilitate the isolation of the Russian Internet. In mid-February, the bill’s first reading passed with support from 334 of the Duma’s 450 deputies; 69 lawmakers didn’t vote at …
Why lawmakers consider ‘isolating’ Russian Internet Read More
For the past six months, a little-known YouTube channel called Studio 188 has been publishing homemade, low-budget versions of major Hollywood trailers and television intros – from Spiderman, to Batman, to Game of Thrones and others. Relying on household items like socks, sausages, and cellophane, and sometimes an application of face paint that would get them fired from American …
Russian YouTube channel creates homemade copies of iconic Hollywood and TV trailers Read More
