Russia’s state communications watchdog announced on Friday that it has blocked access to the Signal messaging app, as part of ongoing efforts to tighten control over information in light of the conflict in Ukraine. The agency, Roskomnadzor, cited Signal’s non-compliance with Russian laws, aiming to prevent its use for terrorist and extremist activities. Signal’s use of end-to-end encryption has made it challenging for the Russian government to intercept messages.
Following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to send troops into Ukraine in February 2022, Russian authorities have increased measures against dissent and independent media. This includes blocking several Russian-language media outlets critical of the government, as well as restricting access to Twitter (which later rebranded as X) and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram. The latest incident impacting the freedom of information involved YouTube experiencing widespread outages on Thursday, following a series of recent slowdowns.
While Russian officials attribute the YouTube disruptions to Google’s alleged equipment failures in the country, experts argue against this explanation. Many experts believe that the real cause behind the slowdowns and outage was the Kremlin’s attempt to limit public access to a platform that hosts opposition viewpoints.
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