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The battle to keep Russia’s internet free

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International sanctions have seen companies including big tech firms halt operations in Russia

International sanctions have seen companies including big tech firms halt operations in Russia – Copyright PRENSA SENADO/AFP Handout

Julie Jammot

Western powers have seized the yachts of Russian oligarchs and booted Russian banks out of the international system in response to the Ukraine invasion, but sanctions that limit access to the internet are proving highly divisive.

Ukraine has called loudly for a widespread boycott and Kyiv has even pushed for Russia to be cut off from the world wide web.

International sanctions have seen companies including big tech firms halt operations in Russia, and EU bans on Russian state media outlets have prompted the Kremlin to ban platforms including Facebook and Instagram.

Critics say all of this could well marginalise opponents of the Kremlin, boost the dominance of state media and even lead Russia to try to develop a sealed-off, local version of the internet.

“It’s just severing the few remaining ties to the free flow of information and ideas,” says Peter Micek of Access Now, an NGO that campaigns for digital rights.

A Kremlin crackdown on journalists has already drastically reduced independent sources of information, forcing many media outlets to close or scale back their operations.

Most international social networks are now available only through virtual private networks (VPNs), with figures for VPN downloads suggesting plenty of Russians are following this path.

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But with web access being squeezed from the inside and the outside, many experts are now calling for the West to take a different approach.

– ‘Hearts and minds’ –

“Sanctions should be focused and precise,” some 40 researchers, activists and politicians wrote in an open letter last week.

“They should minimise the chance of unintended consequences or collateral damage. Disproportionate or over-broad sanctions risk fundamentally alienating populations.”

The letter called for military and propaganda outlets to be targeted.

Other experts point out that punishing Russia by closing off the internet is both technically and politically tricky.

Ukraine called global regulator ICANN to do just this on February 28, but the request was rejected.

“If you try to stop traffic from getting in through the window, it just comes through the cellar instead,” explains Ronan David of Efficient IP, a firm specialised in securing computer networks. 

For Micek, it is simply “counterproductive to the effort to win hearts and minds and spread democratic messages”.

“Because the only counter-narrative, the only other narrative is coming from the Kremlin,” he says.

Natalia Krapiva, a lawyer with Access Now, highlights that people exposed to those narratives may well conclude that “Russia is trying to help Ukrainians and is protecting itself”.

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In this context, Western sanctions may seem “completely unfair”, she says.

– Fears of ‘splinternet’ –

The big fear is that the war and the deepening freeze in relations between Russia and the West will lead the Kremlin to develop its own internet.

China has already built a vast system of control around its internet, dubbed the “Great Firewall”, which in effect cuts it off from the rest of the world.

Recent developments in Russia have led some commentators to speculate that the world faces the creation of a “splinternet”, anathema to those who campaign for equal access across the globe.

“The Russians are quite capable of building a national internet,” says Pierre Bonis of Afnic, the association that manages the .fr domain.

But he says it would be a pale imitation of the global internet.

“We must not break the universality of the internet, even if the Russians do unacceptable things,” he says.

But China is not the only country to have invested heavily to build a closed internet.

Micek points out that Iran has spent a decade building its own controlled, censored version of the web.

“We feel that US sanctions are sort of encouraging Iran to build this functioning national internet by depriving Iranian businesses of basic Google, Amazon and other platforms and resources,” he says.

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And he can see a similar process at play with Russia.

“The people in Russia and Belarus have so little access to information that depriving them of internet services will send them further into Putin’s fist,” he says.


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7 Steps to Create Engaging Twitter Ads [Infographic]

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7 Steps to Create Engaging Twitter Ads [Infographic]

Are you considering investing in Twitter Ads for your business? There’s a lot changing at the app, which has seen some brands pull back their ad spend, but that could also present new opportunities, with lower competition for attention.

Want to learn the basics before getting started?

Teamet från Statusbrew share their Twitter Ads tips in this infographic.

De delar upp saker och ting enligt följande:

  • Twitter Ads account
  • Ads objectives
  • Define campaign details
  • Ad groups and bid type
  • Inriktning
  • Creative options
  • Launch and monitor

Kolla in infografik för mer information.

En version av detta inlägg publicerades först på Röd webbdesignblogg.

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Kenya court orders suspension of mass layoff of Facebook moderators

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Meta said it intends to appeal the ruling

Meta said it intends to appeal the ruling – Copyright AFP/File Lionel BONAVENTURE

A Kenyan court on Friday ordered the suspension of the mass sacking of scores of content moderators by a subcontractor for Facebook’s parent company Meta and directed the social media giant to provide counselling to the employees. 

A total of 184 moderators employed in Nairobi by Sama, an outsourcing firm for Meta, filed a lawsuit in March, claiming their dismissal was “unlawful”.

In a 142-page ruling, labour court judge Byram Ongaya said Meta and Sama were “restrained from terminating the contracts” pending the determination of the lawsuit challenging the legality of the dismissal.

“An interim order is hereby issued that any contracts that were to lapse before the determination of the petition be extended” until the case is settled, the judge added. 

Meta — which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp — was also ordered to “provide proper medical, psychiatric and psychological care for the petitioners and other Facebook content moderators”.

The company told the court of its intention to appeal the ruling. 

The California-based tech behemoth has held that it has no official presence in the East African country and that the complainants are not employed by Meta. 

It is facing two other legal cases in Kenya.

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In 2022, a former South African employee of Sama, Daniel Motaung, filed a complaint in Kenya against Sama and Facebook claiming, among other things, poor working conditions and lack of mental health support.

The labour relations court in Nairobi declared in February it had the jurisdiction to try Motaung’s case. Meta has appealed the decision.

The social media giant is also facing another complaint in Kenya, where a local NGO and two Ethiopian citizens accused Meta of failing to act against online hate speech in Africa.

The complainants alleged this inaction resulted in the murder of a university professor in Ethiopia and called for the creation of a $1.6 billion fund to compensate the victims. 

AFP is involved in a partnership with Meta providing fact-checking services in Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and Africa.

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Företag som använder Twitter-verktyg för att hålla annonser borta från Musks Tweets: NYT

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Företag som använder Twitter-verktyg för att hålla annonser borta från Musk's Tweets: NYT

While Elon Musk claims that “almost all advertisers have come back to Twitter,” some still don’t want anything to do with the company’s CEO.

The New York Times, citing four people familiar with Twitter’s advertising situation, reported that certain brands that have returned to advertising on the platform are using Twitter’s adjacency controls to keep their content clear of increasingly troubling content — including Musk’s own tweets.

Jason Kint, chief executive of Digital Content Next, told the Times that Twitter is “unpredictable and chaotic” adding that, “Advertisers want to run in an environment where they are comfortable and can send a signal about their brand.”

Announced in December 2022, just a few months after Musk took control of the company, adjacency controls aimed to enable advertisers to prevent their ads from appearing adjacent to Tweets that use keywords they’d like to avoid.

“Empowering brands to customize their campaigns to prevent their ads from appearing adjacent to unsuitable content is an important step towards increased ad relevance on Twitter,” said an undated December blog post written by Engineering Lead Nina Chen and Head of Brand Safety AJ Brown.

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Both Chen and Brown are no longer with the company. Neither immediately responded to Insider’s request for comment.

Insider previously reported that Brown attempted to counter the growing perception that Twitter wasn’t safe for brands with a later blogginlägg about the company’s partnerships with adtech companies DoubleVerify and IAS, which were meant to help with brand safety. 

One individual at the company who seems unconcerned with brand safety is Musk himself.

He has deployed an array of bizarre tweets, from antisemitic conspiracy theories to anti-transgender content and anti-vaccine misinformation.

Citing a series of Musk tweets about financier George Soros, Ted Deutch, the chief executive of the American Jewish Committee, told the Times that “the lie Jews want to destroy civilization has led to the persecution of Jewish people for centuries.”

He added, “Musk should know better.”

Twitter responded to Insider’s request for comment with a poop emoji. 



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