London – Russia’s blocking of websites affects even non-journalists who cover content about the war in Ukraine.
That’s what happened on Brainly, an educational platform similar to a social network for teachers and students who were taken offline in the country at the behest of the Russian state communications and media regulator Roskomnadzor.
The Polish startup said in a statement that the decision came after it refused to remove content about the invasion of Ukraine. social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are also blocked For the same reason in Russia.
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Blocking websites in Russia has been a habit since the beginning of the war.
Since the February 24 invasion of Ukraine, Russia has systematically blocked websites promoting any version of the conflict other than that approved by the Kremlin – that this is a “special operation” and not a war with a neighboring country.
Brainly works similarly to the defunct Yahoo Answers: users can ask questions on topics ranging from math to historical facts and get answers from the community, with an emphasis on expert-verified ones.
Earlier this week, the platform was instructed by Roskomnadzor to remove war-related content from the company’s local website, Znanija.
“Obviously, we will not be meeting this demand,” the startup said in a statement.
“Removing this content would violate our mandate and violate Brainly’s promise to our users who trust the platform to find proven information to accelerate their understanding and learning.”
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According to the company, Znanija (Info in Russian) has 350 million monthly active users worldwide, including Brazil, with 45 million in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.
In an example of a post that angered the Russian government, Brainly asked, “What happened in Ukraine after 24/02/2022?” He said that the question page is the question page. It got tens of thousands of views.
The text criticizes Russia’s actions. It begins by describing the beginning of hostilities in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, which is attributed to the “illegal occupation of Ukrainian territory by the Russian army”. “
He continues to talk about the occupation that took place on February 24 and says that “the truth is that life for Ukrainians is no longer what it used to be.”
“About 3 million people were forced to leave their homes and leave the territory of Ukraine in search of safety. Hundreds of thousands of people are in dungeons to protect themselves from active bombing.
And tens of thousands of people took up arms to protect their lands, their families and loved ones. Even those who worked at computers all their lives and never went to war carried weapons.”
The post says war is a mandatory measure, not a personal choice, and defends the right of citizens to take up arms, because “there would be no Ukraine and no Ukrainians” without them.
“Some houses have been destroyed, some people have already lost their families, hundreds of thousands of people are already on the brink of life because they do not have access to food and water.
But one thing is known – people are fighting, they refuse to live in a dictatorship and defend the right to freedom of choice. Ukrainians choose the democracy and freedom of expression they are fighting for.”
“It’s scary to imagine all of this happening in the 21st century, at a time when life is calm, most people live peacefully in comfortable apartments, solve everyday problems, and work on laptops,” Bramley’s interrogation series says.
“Now people sit in cold dungeons, thinking only of seeing the morning sun and praying, because there is nothing else.
War is something that no one expects and no one is happy about. Ukrainians are just ordinary people who want to live, do their job, watch their favorite TV shows at night and cook in peace.”
Justifying the maintenance of the shipment, Bramley said: “Our team in Znanija [esse conteúdo] It will continue to provide active and Ukrainian and Russian-speaking users access to the platform from wherever possible.”
Brainly admitted that since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the visibility of war-related reactions on the platform has increased.
“[E com isso] provide enhanced access to uncensored information about the conflict, its historical context and ongoing international intervention.
Also, since the beginning of March, Brainly has disabled all ads and payments on Znanija.”
Site blocked in Russia wrote about the war in Brazil
The Brazilian version of the site, which is blocked in Russia, also provides answers to questions about the Ukraine war, but in a less dramatic tone than the text published on the Russian version.
One of them was penned by a community respondent on mathematics, history and geography, classifying the problem as “serious and very complex”, explaining the context of the cold war between the Soviet Union and the United States, and drawing attention to the risk of a nuclear conflict.
She says her ex-partner is the daughter of Russian parents who were born in Ukraine. And he says, “The Russians The main heirs of the former Soviet Union, who are very resentful of the West, Europe and the United States, so the country is “trying to recover the lost victory”.
The response classifies Russia as a “non-democratic country” and compares the pressure to make Crimea a Russian territory “undermining the federal constitution” with Rio Grande do Sul’s attempt to integrate with Uruguay.
And ends by emphasizing the danger of a war It includes most of the world and a large number of nuclear bombs in Russia, as well as Ukraine, the United States and Europe.
VPN Helps Bypass Website Blocking in Russia
With the war, Russian citizens have fewer and fewer options to independently inform themselves and access content about the conflict without Kremlin propaganda.
Sites of independent Russian media outlets and even large companies are also prohibited in the country.
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Russians use VPN (virtual private network) connection to circumvent censorship; it’s a way of surfing the internet with encrypted data that hides the location by masking the user’s IP.
Thanks to this, the population of Russia can access blocked sites in the country, for example, by “removing” it, as if in another country.
In March, when Instagram was blocked in the country, VPN usage has grown rapidly in Russia.
According to mobile internet monitoring company SensorTower, from February 24 (given the occupation of Ukraine) to March 8, there were about six million downloads of such apps in Russia.
SurfShark, the cybersecurity company specializing in digital privacy, reported to Italian agency ANSA that VPN sales in Russian territory rose by at least 3500%.
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source: Noticias
