8 ms·

Twitter Banned in Russia

102 points by ushakov 5y ago

spywaregorilla 5y ago
Yandex is concerned it go under too, which is an interesting side effect in the same vein.
- phoe-krk 5y ago
  Source: https://ir.yandex/press-releases?year=2022&id=03-03-2022 https://ir.yandex/press-releases?year=2022&id=03-03-2022
ushakov 5y ago
(pardon for linking Russian website, the announcement just came 10 minutes ago)
- hirundo 5y ago
  It's a good thing for the public to know what the Russian administration and people are saying and thinking, no pardon is required. This is another good reason why not to banish .ru from the interweb. It's the other side that benefits from silencing the opposition, which is a sign of who is winning the debate.
  - Meekro 5y ago
    Both sides are silencing the opposition, one side with government power and the other through media distribution monopolies. RT America (a Russian TV station) just declared bankruptcy after being dropped by DirecTV and Roku at the same time.
JonoW 5y ago
Any Russian users here - does the average person here not wonder why so many previously acceptable services are being blocked and/or silenced? Do they not wonder what it is that the authorities want to shield them from?
- shmerl 5y ago
  I assume average person isn't here. And those who are here know why and have ways to bypass government censorship too.
- nigerian1981 5y ago
  Polls show most Russians are backing Putin https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/04/russia-appears-to-have-no-way-out-as-putin-goes-all-in-ukraine https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/04/russia-appears...
  - jimbob45 5y ago
    Are polls trustworthy either way at this point? People are getting jailed for showing up to protest at all. Answering ‘No’ or abstaining from participation just seems like you’re signing yourself up for a trip to the gulag.
    - RC_ITR 5y ago
      Remember when the majority of Americans supported a War in Iraq? It's easy to build domestic support for almost any war in the early days. It's the long hard reality of war that turns people against it.
      - antifa 5y ago
        I think Putin has some elaborate misinformation most of the country believes, like how we had lied about WMDs.
        RC_ITR 5y ago
        Yeah. And then 8 years later when it becomes pretty clear Iraq/Ukraine doesn’t want you there, it’s hard to keep the populace misinformed.
    - lovehashbrowns 5y ago
      They're probably pretty accurate, yes. Not that I agree with any of it; but Putin has a ton of "justifications" for what's happening in Ukraine right now. The main one being that the US & West are threatening Russia's entire existence via NATO expansion. If most of the media around you is state-sanctioned and pro-Putin, it's super easy to go along with Putin's justifications.
gundmc 5y ago
Wow, YouTube as well apparently. I wonder if this will be a watershed moment in the balkanization of the internet, or if this access will be restored at some point in the future.
- arprocter 5y ago
  And Facebook, if the Google translation is correct Edit: supposedly the BBC are on the naughty list, too
- qiskit 5y ago
  Feels like a watershed moment. Though we've had countries ( india, china, US, russia ) block or try to block each other social media before. EU has already don't this to russian media/social media. Though it's not technically a country. But I do think months/years after the war is over, everyone will let social media back into their countries after series of negotiations.
  - throwmeariver1 5y ago
- GameOfFrowns 5y ago
  Youtube? Sounds like much bigger news to me than a Twitter ban inside Russia. I'm not too familiar with the Russian netscape, is there a local YT alternative?
  - gundmc 5y ago
    It was posted as such here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30560125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30560125 But I haven't seen good corroborating sources yet.
1270018080 5y ago
https://www-interfax-ru.translate.goog/russia/826411?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-interfax-ru.translate.goog/russia/826411?_x_tr_s... google translate link
toomuchtodo 5y ago
https://archive.ph/CxQMR https://archive.ph/CxQMR
DominikD 5y ago
Facebook banned as well.
cyberge99 5y ago
It will be interesting to see how this affects bot farms that seem to originate from there.
- supreme_berry 5y ago
  Anti-covid activity already went down right after Russian invasion to Ukraine
  - karlicoss 5y ago
    I'm not sure it's related, in my internet neighborhood covid generally getting way less attention than before the invasion
  - colpabar 5y ago
    Could you elaborate? Is this just something you noticed, or are you referring to some publicly available metric?
    - supreme_berry 5y ago
      There were some stats and graphs showing quantity of posts in Twitter related to anti-covid topics and how they changed after February 24th. Russia has extremely large bot-farms where low-skilled people just copy-paste same things from main distribution channels into social networks like Twitter. They had to change narrative due to newly introduced war.
  - paganel 5y ago
    To be fair Covid-related news disappeared almost completely from the media of my country (Romania) once the crisis in Ukraine starting getting real serious.
  - t0bia_s 5y ago
    This is what I see in my country (Czechia) as well. Right after covid propaganda started to collapse even in mainstream media, we have another distraction. In fact, we have here devastating inflation and prices of food going up like 20-50%. Last month I've got new prices for gas. Bill is 600% higher. But media don't care. It's ticking bomb for poverty. Beside of this, our gonverment signed new law that is above our constitution and basically give ministry of health unlimited rights to close business, put individuals to quarantine by message and so on. For our safety, of course. All EU countries have to signs those totalitarian laws: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/cs/policies/coronavirus/pandemic-treaty/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/cs/policies/coronavirus/pand...
madrox 5y ago
I wonder if a day will ever come when a "X major site banned in the USA" headline crosses HN for speech reasons. We've been surprisingly tolerant of a lot of nonsense from a top-down perspective. The closest we get is a grassroots campaign to get Joe Rogan off Spotify.
- kibwen 5y ago
  Rather, I think the closest was when Trump threatened to ban TikTok.
  - madrox 5y ago
    But that was because security and not speech. Close but a different issue. We've shut down a lot of stuff for that reason.
    - eunos 5y ago
      You can always formulate speech issue as security issue. Cite ideological security/resilience for example.
      - lukifer 5y ago
        The classic example is "shouting fire in a crowded theater"; a phrase we still hear today, despite its origin being the prosecution of anti-war activists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
    - ChrisLomont 5y ago
      It was because Trump wanted to poke China and because a TikTok campaign embarrassed Trump by buying up all the tickets to a Trump crusade rally. If it were security, then it still would be, and we'd still be having the discussion. It was about Trump, so when Trump lost interest or the ability to cause hassle, the problem also went away.
    - plugger 5y ago
throw_m239339 5y ago
Well, to the people in another thread worried about the US cutting off Russia from the internet, looks like Russia is going to do that themselves...
nsonha 5y ago
I'll ask this question again: Twitter is garbage, why do people discuss important social & political issue there? At best twitter is able to accommodate to 2 opposing points of view in a "thread" (barely). Most of the times, the so called thread is just a single narrative with very hard to track opposing comments here and there. Forget it if you have more than 2 points of view on the topic. And absolutely nothing nuance can be discussed. I'd like to see a traditional news organization, say NYT, investing in an open forum platform, maybe decentralized, to help informing the public.
- fellellor 5y ago
  People like garbage. Even if it’s harmful to them. I don’t think people running Twitter are taking one side or the other. Like Facebook, Twitter is simply evil and tries its best to funnel the kind of content to you that would keep you “engaged” and angry. Only know, instead of stupid kids, and jobless schmucks, the people being kept engaged are politicians, influential scholars and journalists who think that nukes are just another type of bomb and nothing to be afraid of.

102 points by ushakov 5y ago

spywaregorilla 5y ago

Yandex is concerned it go under too, which is an interesting side effect in the same vein.

phoe-krk 5y ago
Source: https://ir.yandex/press-releases?year=2022&id=03-03-2022 https://ir.yandex/press-releases?year=2022&id=03-03-2022

ushakov 5y ago

(pardon for linking Russian website, the announcement just came 10 minutes ago)

hirundo 5y ago
It's a good thing for the public to know what the Russian administration and people are saying and thinking, no pardon is required. This is another good reason why not to banish .ru from the interweb. It's the other side that benefits from silencing the opposition, which is a sign of who is winning the debate.
- Meekro 5y ago
  Both sides are silencing the opposition, one side with government power and the other through media distribution monopolies. RT America (a Russian TV station) just declared bankruptcy after being dropped by DirecTV and Roku at the same time.

JonoW 5y ago

Any Russian users here - does the average person here not wonder why so many previously acceptable services are being blocked and/or silenced? Do they not wonder what it is that the authorities want to shield them from?

shmerl 5y ago
I assume average person isn't here. And those who are here know why and have ways to bypass government censorship too.
nigerian1981 5y ago
Polls show most Russians are backing Putin https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/04/russia-appears-to-have-no-way-out-as-putin-goes-all-in-ukraine https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/04/russia-appears...
- jimbob45 5y ago
  Are polls trustworthy either way at this point? People are getting jailed for showing up to protest at all. Answering ‘No’ or abstaining from participation just seems like you’re signing yourself up for a trip to the gulag.
  - RC_ITR 5y ago
    Remember when the majority of Americans supported a War in Iraq? It's easy to build domestic support for almost any war in the early days. It's the long hard reality of war that turns people against it.
    - antifa 5y ago
      I think Putin has some elaborate misinformation most of the country believes, like how we had lied about WMDs.
      - RC_ITR 5y ago
        Yeah. And then 8 years later when it becomes pretty clear Iraq/Ukraine doesn’t want you there, it’s hard to keep the populace misinformed.
  - lovehashbrowns 5y ago
    They're probably pretty accurate, yes. Not that I agree with any of it; but Putin has a ton of "justifications" for what's happening in Ukraine right now. The main one being that the US & West are threatening Russia's entire existence via NATO expansion. If most of the media around you is state-sanctioned and pro-Putin, it's super easy to go along with Putin's justifications.

gundmc 5y ago

Wow, YouTube as well apparently. I wonder if this will be a watershed moment in the balkanization of the internet, or if this access will be restored at some point in the future.

arprocter 5y ago
And Facebook, if the Google translation is correct Edit: supposedly the BBC are on the naughty list, too
qiskit 5y ago
Feels like a watershed moment. Though we've had countries ( india, china, US, russia ) block or try to block each other social media before. EU has already don't this to russian media/social media. Though it's not technically a country. But I do think months/years after the war is over, everyone will let social media back into their countries after series of negotiations.
- throwmeariver1 5y ago
GameOfFrowns 5y ago
Youtube? Sounds like much bigger news to me than a Twitter ban inside Russia. I'm not too familiar with the Russian netscape, is there a local YT alternative?
- gundmc 5y ago
  It was posted as such here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30560125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30560125 But I haven't seen good corroborating sources yet.

1270018080 5y ago

https://www-interfax-ru.translate.goog/russia/826411?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp https://www-interfax-ru.translate.goog/russia/826411?_x_tr_s... google translate link

toomuchtodo 5y ago

https://archive.ph/CxQMR https://archive.ph/CxQMR

DominikD 5y ago

Facebook banned as well.

cyberge99 5y ago

It will be interesting to see how this affects bot farms that seem to originate from there.

supreme_berry 5y ago
Anti-covid activity already went down right after Russian invasion to Ukraine
- karlicoss 5y ago
  I'm not sure it's related, in my internet neighborhood covid generally getting way less attention than before the invasion
- colpabar 5y ago
  Could you elaborate? Is this just something you noticed, or are you referring to some publicly available metric?
  - supreme_berry 5y ago
    There were some stats and graphs showing quantity of posts in Twitter related to anti-covid topics and how they changed after February 24th. Russia has extremely large bot-farms where low-skilled people just copy-paste same things from main distribution channels into social networks like Twitter. They had to change narrative due to newly introduced war.
- paganel 5y ago
  To be fair Covid-related news disappeared almost completely from the media of my country (Romania) once the crisis in Ukraine starting getting real serious.
- t0bia_s 5y ago
  This is what I see in my country (Czechia) as well. Right after covid propaganda started to collapse even in mainstream media, we have another distraction. In fact, we have here devastating inflation and prices of food going up like 20-50%. Last month I've got new prices for gas. Bill is 600% higher. But media don't care. It's ticking bomb for poverty. Beside of this, our gonverment signed new law that is above our constitution and basically give ministry of health unlimited rights to close business, put individuals to quarantine by message and so on. For our safety, of course. All EU countries have to signs those totalitarian laws: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/cs/policies/coronavirus/pandemic-treaty/ https://www.consilium.europa.eu/cs/policies/coronavirus/pand...

madrox 5y ago

I wonder if a day will ever come when a "X major site banned in the USA" headline crosses HN for speech reasons. We've been surprisingly tolerant of a lot of nonsense from a top-down perspective. The closest we get is a grassroots campaign to get Joe Rogan off Spotify.

kibwen 5y ago
Rather, I think the closest was when Trump threatened to ban TikTok.
- madrox 5y ago
  But that was because security and not speech. Close but a different issue. We've shut down a lot of stuff for that reason.
  - eunos 5y ago
    You can always formulate speech issue as security issue. Cite ideological security/resilience for example.
    - lukifer 5y ago
      The classic example is "shouting fire in a crowded theater"; a phrase we still hear today, despite its origin being the prosecution of anti-war activists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
  - ChrisLomont 5y ago
    It was because Trump wanted to poke China and because a TikTok campaign embarrassed Trump by buying up all the tickets to a Trump crusade rally. If it were security, then it still would be, and we'd still be having the discussion. It was about Trump, so when Trump lost interest or the ability to cause hassle, the problem also went away.
  - plugger 5y ago

throw_m239339 5y ago

Well, to the people in another thread worried about the US cutting off Russia from the internet, looks like Russia is going to do that themselves...

nsonha 5y ago

I'll ask this question again: Twitter is garbage, why do people discuss important social & political issue there? At best twitter is able to accommodate to 2 opposing points of view in a "thread" (barely). Most of the times, the so called thread is just a single narrative with very hard to track opposing comments here and there. Forget it if you have more than 2 points of view on the topic. And absolutely nothing nuance can be discussed. I'd like to see a traditional news organization, say NYT, investing in an open forum platform, maybe decentralized, to help informing the public.

fellellor 5y ago
People like garbage. Even if it’s harmful to them. I don’t think people running Twitter are taking one side or the other. Like Facebook, Twitter is simply evil and tries its best to funnel the kind of content to you that would keep you “engaged” and angry. Only know, instead of stupid kids, and jobless schmucks, the people being kept engaged are politicians, influential scholars and journalists who think that nukes are just another type of bomb and nothing to be afraid of.