this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2021
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Alot of Russians are coming to the Fediverse and Russia threatens to ban Twitter in a month. (abcnews.go.com)
submitted 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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get this; Russia's watchdog is planning on banning twitter in a month (now even closer) if they don't do anything about their illegal content in their platform. and now their ISPs are throttling twitter's traffic to make it unusable.

Illegal content I mean, well... Illegal content. just go to the shady part of the internet and you'll know what I mean. ^don't^ ^actually^ ^do^ ^this^

" On March 10th, 2021, the wave of new users started rushing into the Russian constellation of the Fediverse. Hundreds of people were displaced by the measures Russian state communication commission ("Roscomnadzor") has taken against the microblogging website Twitter, after their failure to comply with the order to remove the unspecified "Illegan Material". Under the sacntions, the Russian Internet service providers must throttle the traffic in order to make the service unusable, and further default on the Twitter's side will lead to a full and complete blocking of the website on the Russian soil. " ^source^

this was happening because Russia’s media watchdog announced it was launching an "initial slowdown" at the same day. twitter seems like they don't even care. read the articles below. I don't really know why they're doing this, but I'm not complaining.

Twitter's response; "We are concerned about free speech"

On Wednesday, Russia began throttling Twitter as a way of pressuring the San Francisco-based company to remove over 3,100 posts found to be in violation of Russian law. Specifically, this includes 450 instances of child pornograpy and more than 2500 incitements to underage suicide.

Twitter responded by saying it was "deeply concerned by increased attempts to block and throttle online public"

I can't tell whether that's a joke or not. they can't be serious. what are they protecting really? I'm baffled here. that wasn't really a smart move now is it. you have to read this;

Censorship-happy Twitter suddenly concerned about ‘public conversation’ as Russia cracks down on illegal content

Russia Blasts Twitter For Being "Too Slow" In Deleting Content "Harmful For Children"

mind you they were deleting those illegal content. but really, really, really, slowly. ^source^ It's kind of a bit shady from twitter here. It's only about 3,000 post requested to be removed. but why can't they just remove it? It's very questionable as far as this action speaks. why are they protecting those **** and **** posts. there is no reason to do this.

sources;

spoilerhttps://www.rt.com/op-ed/517771-twitter-censorship-russia-illegal-content/

https://mastodon.online/web/statuses/105924846376829882

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/russia-threatens-block-twitter-month-76488991

https://tass.com/economy/1269283

https://news.yahoo.com/russia-chides-twitter-slow-deletion-114842231.html?

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/russia-blasts-twitter-being-too-slow-deleting-content-harmful-children

.

that's it for today. this is really getting to me, I mean. It's really funny though. the only thing I learn from diving into this rabbit hole is Twitter is really dumb. and yeah.. have a great day everyone.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 years ago (1 children)

This represents an potentially exciting development for the fediverse. I assume that the primary service grown by this would be mastodon.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 years ago

you're probably right, I first heard this on mastodon actually. I thought it was like 'ah, some of the twitter posts doesn't comply with russian law. good for us mastodon users.' but then after a day I researched on it again. it turns out it was completely not what I had expected. those illegal materials were really disgusting stuff

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 years ago

Geopolitics will kill the international growth of American tech firms. All these big tech forms are hiring Washington DC ex-state department staff for political advise, which is having the ironic effect of US government interference in censorship. This leads to international concern for using American social media and alternative seeking. Mastodon is well positioned here. Bit of lucky timing (easy to use app), bit of the right structure (open source, defederated).

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 years ago (3 children)

This is a great move. If they do ban twitter, the fediverse will grow massively as a result.

Plus its so incredibly dangerous to allow US tech companies to have control over any social media within your borders. AFAIK India has it the worst, with facebook having control over something like 80% of social media users. Luckily Russia does have a lot of home-grown solutions so they don't have that problem.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

I have my doubts though. I feel like most Russians will just get a VPN and keep using Twitter rather than be bothered to learn a whole new social media platform. Many might even think it's not as good as Twitter because it's smaller, and don't really care about Twitter's privacy/ethics issues.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 years ago (1 children)

My bet is that Russia is working towards gaining more leverage on tech giants. this has been the same pattern with other tech giants. next they might ask for all data of Russian citizens to be stored in Rissia. then ask for easy direct access to it. just like the Prism program in the U.S!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago (1 children)

either way, It's still bad if only the US has control over a social media from around the world. this is an unlikely agreement, but I hope all countries one day agrees to just using federated platforms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago (1 children)

Other countries would rather have one central social network to deal with, to ask for user data and send gag orders , rather than hundreds of thousands of intances.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago

if once an international conference happens regarding this topic. if there is one person who proposes this idea, no one else would be able to oppose it since if they do so, it indicates malice. no one wanna look bad. or so I hope.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 years ago

Twitter is in a really bad position here, but this doesn't mean Fediverse's softwares won't receive the same fall for making the same mistakes.

[–] F4rtEmp3r0r 11 points 3 years ago (1 children)

The more, the merrier as far as I'm concerned. Happy to have more people on the Fediverse.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 years ago

Twitter is not that strong on Russia[1], so we will not see a influx that big. Most users should migrate to mail.ru group networks: VK, OK, My World, ICQ[2], that Russian government have easy access.

1 - https://www.statista.com/statistics/867549/top-active-social-media-platforms-in-russia/ 2 - https://corp.mail.ru/en/company/social/

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (2 children)

To be real mastodon or any other federated network will be easier to shut down than Twitter or Facebook. giant social media platforms benefit from their network effect. if blocked they will cause major problems to Russia ,and will further tarnish its image globally.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (2 children)

legally speaking, you don't have a reason to shut down servers that doesn't do it, only the servers that has illegal content.

Fediverse platforms like mastodon already has a list of blacklisted servers, if they want to shut us down, they don't have much reason to do so, because unlike twitter, mastodon can just tell the Russian watchdogs to block certain instances from a list. and the russians could run instances on their own with their own rules. (i.e. rules that complies with russian law. also russian laws aren't that different from US when it comes to prohibited content)

if the russians realize not one geopolitical entity has control over it, the one who controls it are just different people from around the world. why would they ever do such thing?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 years ago (2 children)

the lawfulness of content is not the issue here, they don't care really, only using it as a somewhat legitimate excuse to shut down platforms that are used by their political opponents

you can set up a mastodon instance with the strictest moderation possible checking every post against every law, but if you get significant traction with political opposition, you will get noticed and they will try to shut you down, regardless of legality of content there

they can always just appeal to one of the many very broad laws regarding content on the internet, or if for whatever reason that doesn't work just pass a brand new law specifically for that, as they control the majority in the state duma (a law making organ)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 children)

not in the case of twitter though, they've been asking to remove those 3,000 (2,862) posts since 2017, just now they're finally taking action. I don't think russia is doing as bad as anyone else say they are.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 children)

banning illegal content and getting rid of undesirable platforms is an intertwined effort for them

i'm not saying that twitter is innocent of course here, but giving the benefit of doubt to roskomnadzor and the russian government in general is the last thing i would do, especially given their track record regarding internet censorship...

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 years ago

if anything I hope, they won't do anything as stupid as making mastodon illegal because some instances has 'illegal content'. we can celebrate this one for now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

using it as a somewhat legitimate excuse to shut down platforms that are used by their political opponents

they don't have that excuse this time around, no one owns the fediverse.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

Well (illegal content) could be defined differently by different governments.

  • (LGBTQ ++++) is specifically in Russia illegal content.
  • criticism of the state is illegal content.
  • protest organizing is illegal content
  • Blasphemy is in many regions illegal content.
  • and many more
    IMO hammering twitter to delete C.P (that could even be planted by russian fake accounts) is just the beginning and not the end goal.
[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 years ago (2 children)

There are trade offs, platforms like Mastodon are federated and that means you end up playing wack-a-mole with them. Running a server is pretty easy, and people can just spin up instances and build communities with their friends there. If one instance gets shut down that doesn't kill the whole network.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (2 children)

platforms like Mastodon are federated and that means you end up playing wack-a-mole with them

Each federated platform has a fingerprint though, like opening up API channels with the same names. It would be pretty easy to just block any server that has the fingerprints of a federated platform you don't want in your country.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 years ago (1 children)

that’s a keen insight I hadn’t thought of, but with https it seems it would be a lot harder to dragnet and require probing the actual instances, no?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 years ago (1 children)

but with https it seems it would be a lot harder to dragnet and require probing the actual instances

Yes, but just as federated instances can discover each other through existing federation connections, they can also do that if they wanted to blanked ban a platform.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 years ago

definitely, just a bit more expensive. it would be funny to see a CV of an agent listing ActivityPub Special Task Force on it, but surely its out there in some form.

this seems like one more good reason to get robots enhancement in https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/707

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 years ago (1 children)

except people can run servers inside the country

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago (2 children)

Wouldn't that be even easier to ban?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 years ago

Not really because you have to do it on case by case basis. It's just an HTTP server, so unless you go banning HTTP entirely, you have to play whack-a-mole.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 years ago

they would have no reason to ban a worldwide-and-fair social media platform. the reason they're banning twitter is because the one controlling that platform is the US. I doubt they care that much about removing **** than they care about removing control from other geopolitical entities.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 years ago (1 children)

If the state of things have though me anything. is that people don't care about it being federated. if they block fediverse instances people won't be so keen to keep hoping from one another. don't forget that not only it is veryhard to buildup large online communities, but once those online connections (social graph) are broken. it will be very hard for them to be revived.
With the fediverse at the moment having very little traction, I bet government bans will be a deadly blow to the fediverse. people will go back to whatever central coercive solution is provided.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 years ago (1 children)

I don't think communities need to be large. I find that most meaningful interactions actually happen in small communities focused on particular interests. I think that people setting up servers and running small communities of hundreds or thousands of users results in much more interesting networks than giant platforms like Fb or Twitter.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 years ago

That's really true. the content in twitter. youtube, instagram etc. are too focused on celebrities and politics. too much scrolling on things that don't matter that much as it has nothing to do with us. Social medias are supposed to be used to connect with people. if simping on celebrities everyday is your thing. well, I kind of find it detrimental to your well being. socialize with real people and go about your day chasing your dreams, surround yourself with people that are productive.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 years ago (1 children)

this is an interesting development

russia does have a large problem of most of discourse concentrated around either state run or state controlled social medias like vkontakte, yandex, odnoklassniki etc

The censorship-instigated migration brought also some prominent members of Russian blogging community

does anyone know of any particular examples?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 years ago

the mastodon user knows that, he speaks russian.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 years ago

This could turn into a major shit show if you know who launches his new platform and geopolitical arrows start flying. No idea if that would be allowed inside Russia either.

Either way, another substantial migration off a big tech platform (hopefully to federated) would be good long term.