Russia throttles its citizens’ online access

YouTube videos that won't load. A visit to a popular independent media website that produces only a blank page. Cellphone internet connections that are down for hours or days.

- By Dasna LITVINOvA

AN ACTIVIST protests Russian government censorship Associated Press near parliament's lower house in Moscow in July.

Going online in Russia can be frustrating, complicated and even dangerous.

It’s not a network glitch but a deliberate, multi-pronged, long-term effort by authorities to bring the internet under the Kremlin's full control. Authorities adopted restrictive laws and banned websites and platforms that won’t comply. Technology monitors and manipulates online traffic.

Although it’s still possible to circumvent restrictions by using virtual private network apps, those are routinely blocked too.

Authorities further restricted internet access this summer with widespread shutdowns of cellphone internet connections and by adopting a law punishing users for searching for content they deem illicit.

They also are threatening to go after the popular WhatsApp platform while rolling out a “national” messaging app that’s widely expected to be monitored.

President Vladimir Putin urged the government to “stifle” foreign internet services and ordered officials to assemble a list of platforms from “unfriendly” states that should be restricted.

Experts and rights advocates told the Associated Press that the scale and effectiveness of the restrictions are alarming. Authorities seem more adept at it now, compared with previous, largely futile efforts to restrict online activities, and they’re edging closer to isolating the internet in Russia.

Human Rights Watch researcher Anastasiia Kruope describes Moscow's approach to reining in the internet as “death by a thousand cuts.”

“Bit by bit, you're trying to come to a point where everythingis controlled.”

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