9 October 2024

Amid intensifying pressure on technology platforms, Russian communications regulator Roskomnadzor...announced the official blocking of the Discord messaging platform, citing violations of Russian law.

The announcement was first reported by the state-run TASS news agency, which quoted Roskomnadzor.

According to Roskomnadzor, Discord had been involved in distributing content that violates Russian legislation, with almost 1,000 "illegal materials" found on the platform. The service had already been fined 3.5 million rubles ($36,270) in mid-September for alleged similar violations.

Anton Nemkin, a member of the parliamentary Committee on Information Policy, told another Russian state news agency, RIA Novosti, that this move should be seen as a "signal to other foreign IT companies that [our] patience and willingness to negotiate are running out."

Users of Discord had already begun reporting issues with the platform in September, with both the web version and the app experiencing service disruptions.

Despite these failures, users were still able to access the service via VPNs...

On October 1, the Federal Security Service (FSB) reported the arrest of 39 individuals described as "pro-Ukrainian radicals" who allegedly used Discord to incite violence among teenagers.

The move to block Discord comes amid a broader trend of the Russian government intensifying its control over technology platforms as part of its efforts to control online information flows and enforce laws on content it does not want to be accessed by the public.

The pattern of blocking and fines imposed on other tech platforms in Russia in recent years, such as Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, and others has shown that any service that refuses to comply with the Russian government's demands for data access, information control, or censorship is at risk of being targeted.