The State Duma is not considering bills to restrict the use of VPN services for the use of prohibited web resources to which Roskomnadzor restricts access
Photo: Farooq Khan / EPA / TASS
The State Duma does not plan to legally restrict the use of VPN services for using Facebook and Instagram social networks (owned by Meta, the corporation is recognized as extremist and banned in Russia). This was announced by the head of the Committee on Information Policy Alexander Khinshtein, reports Interfax.
“I don’t know about such initiatives. We didn’t work them out,” says Khinshtein. The MP called the introduction of responsibility for the use of VPN unpromising. It will backfire, he says.
VPN services provide connections to servers located in other countries. With the help of them, users bypass the blocking of Roskomnadzor, which has restricted access to a large number of resources since the beginning of the Russian military operation in Ukraine.
In Russia, VPN services have become the most downloaded apps for IOS and Android devices. In early March, Khinshtein reported that Roskomnadzor had already blocked more than 20 VPN services.
On March 21, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow recognized Meta (which owns Facebook, Instagram and What’sApp) as an extremist organization and banned its activities. The Prosecutor General’s Office stated that the company’s activities are “directed against Russia and its armed forces.”