Amid a sustained campaign to exert greater control over internet access, Russian officials have blocked access to the social media app Snapchat and placed curbs on Apple's FaceTime service, Apple FaceTime.
The state internet regulator Roskomnadzor stated that the two apps were being used to organize and conduct terrorist activities on Russian soil, to enlist people and commit fraud as well as various crimes against citizens.
Roskomnadzor said it initiated the block against Snapchat back on the 10th of October, even though the decision was publicly disclosed on Thursday.
These new restrictions come after comparable limitations against major platforms including YouTube, WhatsApp and Instagram, and the Telegram service. These measures of bans escalated in the wake of the onset of the conflict of Ukraine by Russia.
During the tenure of Vladimir Putin, Russian officials have undertaken calculated and wide-ranging initiatives to curtail the internet. Measures have included:
Access to YouTube was throttled last year in a case of deliberate throttling by officials. The Kremlin pointed the finger at YouTube's owner, Google for failing to maintain its hardware in Russia.
This summer, authorities further restricted online access with widespread disruptions of cellular data connections. Officials stated this was required to prevent Ukrainian drone attacks, but analysts saw it as another step to assert dominance over the digital landscape.
Authorities has also targeted widely-used communication apps. Encrypted messenger Signal and the Viber service, Viber, were restricted in this year. Additionally, officials outlawed voice calls on the WhatsApp app and Telegram, defending the ban by stating the services were being involved in criminal activities.
Concurrently, authorities have actively promoted a dubbed "domestic" messenger app called "Max". Experts view it as a potential monitoring instrument. The service admits it will hand over data with the government if demanded, and experts note it does not use end-to-end encryption.
As explained by lawyer and expert Stanislav Seleznev, Russian law classifies any service where people can communicate as an "information dissemination organizer".
This label obligates that platforms register with the regulator and grant the FSB with access to communications. Platforms that fail to meet these demands are non-compliant and may be banned.
Seleznev estimated that perhaps tens of millions of Russians had been turning to FaceTime, particularly after restrictions were placed on WhatsApp and Telegram. He described the blocking of the Apple service as "expected" and warned that further services failing to cooperate with authorities "are likely to be blocked – it is inevitable."
In a related development, the government also said it was restricting the online game platform Roblox, stating the reason was child protection from illicit content. Per data from media monitoring group Mediascope, Roblox was the number two game platform in Russia recently, with approximately 8 million active users.
Although it is still feasible to circumvent some of these blocks by utilizing VPN services, VPNs themselves are routinely blocked by authorities as well.
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