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Is this done to avoid Russian censorship? If so, interesting that Twitter's move is to go out of their way so they can still do business with Russians, while mo

by oauea 5y ago

Is this done to avoid Russian censorship? If so, interesting that Twitter's move is to go out of their way so they can still do business with Russians, while most other companies have decided that the correct choice is to sever all ties.

clownbaby 5y ago
For many companies, the current situation makes it very difficult to continue business operations from a logistical perspective, and because of that they are pulling out of Russia -- they are just using the narrative of boycotting Russia because of atrocities as a PR move which they also are benefiting from.
pcmoney 5y ago
Why would you jump to a bad faith conclusion? Why would wanting to keep Twitter accessible to Russian nationals be bad? Twitter doesn’t work in many countries such as China. There’s just not a whole lot of money in Russia to advertise to either, entire economy is smaller than New York State’s. This is much more aligned with Twitter’s push for decentralization.
atoav 5y ago
And the BBC is broadcasting their program on shortwave again — I don't think the classical way of thinking about sanctions directly applies to media type organisations. Of course one could argue russian trolls could use this to influence opinions on twitter as well, but wouldn't the most scary thing for Putin be his Russians getting non-state approved information on the war and the situation in Russia? If the goal of sanctions is to drive a wedge between the political leadership and it's population, and we assume it works in principle, excluding certain platforms where people can get outside informations might actually be a good thing.
pigscantfly 5y ago
I think it is important that normal Russian people have access to outside sources of information to erode popular support of the war; their politicians seem to have no difficulty using Twitter to spread propaganda to the English-speaking world. I doubt the company is making any money from this or accepting Russian advertising, although I admit I don't have evidence to cite. I'm not affiliated with Twitter, nor do I use it, by the way.
- ashwagary 5y ago
  >I think it is important that normal Russian people have access to outside sources of information I think this is true regardless of what they do with the information. Malice aside, I don't think freedom of information needs to necessarily serve another group's interest to be a worthy cause.
w-j-w 5y ago
ComputerGuru 5y ago
Yes; BBC just made its news available over tor a few days before: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50150981 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50150981 (with the stupid title BBC News launches 'dark web' Tor mirror)
- defanor 5y ago
  I wondered why they do it back then, and wondering about Twitter now: when trying to access those from Russia, if you use Tor, it's easy to access the website on its regular address via an exit node. Of course an .onion wouldn't harm, but it doesn't make much difference. On the other hand, the government tries to block Tor in Russia since the last year, the bridges that used to work don't work anymore, and even if you obtain new ones to which you manage to connect, somehow Tor still fails to complete a connection to the network (I didn't investigate further yet). So a regular mirror is likely to be more useful than an .onion one (even though it's also likely to be blacklisted soon).
yurish 5y ago
Tor is blocked in Russia.
- kvetching 5y ago
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  Im not sure if this has changed since my source was published but according to this article[0], the Tor Blocks in russia are not nation wide and originate from individual ISPs: >"According to OONI, it wasn't all of Russia blocking Tor; it was 15 out of 65 subnets. Moreover, each censorship instance used a different blocking method" >"If the censorship was government-sponsored, as the Tor Project suggested, then I would expect it to be much more widespread and consistent. This looks like individual blocking efforts. As OONI noted, the blocks followed a "recent spike in the use of Tor bridges (used for circumventing Tor blocking) in Russia." Though the situation might be totally different now considering the recent events. [0] https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/944-Tor-0day-Snowflake.html https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/944-To...

by oauea 5y ago

clownbaby 5y ago

For many companies, the current situation makes it very difficult to continue business operations from a logistical perspective, and because of that they are pulling out of Russia -- they are just using the narrative of boycotting Russia because of atrocities as a PR move which they also are benefiting from.

pcmoney 5y ago

Why would you jump to a bad faith conclusion? Why would wanting to keep Twitter accessible to Russian nationals be bad? Twitter doesn’t work in many countries such as China. There’s just not a whole lot of money in Russia to advertise to either, entire economy is smaller than New York State’s. This is much more aligned with Twitter’s push for decentralization.

atoav 5y ago

And the BBC is broadcasting their program on shortwave again — I don't think the classical way of thinking about sanctions directly applies to media type organisations. Of course one could argue russian trolls could use this to influence opinions on twitter as well, but wouldn't the most scary thing for Putin be his Russians getting non-state approved information on the war and the situation in Russia? If the goal of sanctions is to drive a wedge between the political leadership and it's population, and we assume it works in principle, excluding certain platforms where people can get outside informations might actually be a good thing.

pigscantfly 5y ago

I think it is important that normal Russian people have access to outside sources of information to erode popular support of the war; their politicians seem to have no difficulty using Twitter to spread propaganda to the English-speaking world. I doubt the company is making any money from this or accepting Russian advertising, although I admit I don't have evidence to cite. I'm not affiliated with Twitter, nor do I use it, by the way.

ashwagary 5y ago
>I think it is important that normal Russian people have access to outside sources of information I think this is true regardless of what they do with the information. Malice aside, I don't think freedom of information needs to necessarily serve another group's interest to be a worthy cause.

w-j-w 5y ago

ComputerGuru 5y ago

Yes; BBC just made its news available over tor a few days before: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50150981 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50150981 (with the stupid title BBC News launches 'dark web' Tor mirror)

defanor 5y ago
I wondered why they do it back then, and wondering about Twitter now: when trying to access those from Russia, if you use Tor, it's easy to access the website on its regular address via an exit node. Of course an .onion wouldn't harm, but it doesn't make much difference. On the other hand, the government tries to block Tor in Russia since the last year, the bridges that used to work don't work anymore, and even if you obtain new ones to which you manage to connect, somehow Tor still fails to complete a connection to the network (I didn't investigate further yet). So a regular mirror is likely to be more useful than an .onion one (even though it's also likely to be blacklisted soon).

yurish 5y ago

Tor is blocked in Russia.

kvetching 5y ago
mardifoufs 5y ago
Im not sure if this has changed since my source was published but according to this article[0], the Tor Blocks in russia are not nation wide and originate from individual ISPs: >"According to OONI, it wasn't all of Russia blocking Tor; it was 15 out of 65 subnets. Moreover, each censorship instance used a different blocking method" >"If the censorship was government-sponsored, as the Tor Project suggested, then I would expect it to be much more widespread and consistent. This looks like individual blocking efforts. As OONI noted, the blocks followed a "recent spike in the use of Tor bridges (used for circumventing Tor blocking) in Russia." Though the situation might be totally different now considering the recent events. [0] https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/944-Tor-0day-Snowflake.html https://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/944-To...