In a ongoing campaign to exert greater control over digital platforms, Russian regulators have restricted access to Snapchat and placed curbs on Apple's FaceTime service, Apple FaceTime.
Russia's communications watchdog Roskomnadzor claimed that both applications were employed to organize and conduct terrorist activities inside Russia, to enlist people and commit fraud and other crimes aimed at the populace.
Officials stated it enforced the restriction targeting Snapchat back on the 10th of October, though the announcement was only made public later.
This recent action are part of similar restrictions targeting popular services including Google's YouTube, Meta's WhatsApp and Instagram, and the Telegram messaging service. The campaign of censorship intensified after the onset of the conflict of Ukraine by Russia.
Under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, authorities have undertaken calculated and wide-ranging strategies to curtail the digital space. This has included:
Access to YouTube was slowed last year in a case of intentional slowing by officials. The Kremlin pointed the finger at Google for not properly maintaining its servers in Russia.
This summer, officials further restricted connectivity with broad outages of cellphone internet connections. The government insisted this was required to thwart drone strikes, but experts argued a further measure to increase control over the digital landscape.
Regulators has also moved against widely-used communication apps. Encrypted messenger Signal and the Viber service, Viber, were blocked in recently. Additionally, authorities outlawed voice calls on WhatsApp and Telegram, justifying the ban by claiming the platforms were being facilitating criminal activities.
At the same time, authorities have heavily pushed a dubbed "national" messenger app called "Max". Experts regard it as a possible tool for oversight. The app explicitly states it will hand over data with authorities if demanded, and analysts note it lacks end-to-end encryption.
As explained by lawyer and expert Stanislav Seleznev, Russian law defines any service where people can communicate as an "information dissemination organizer".
This label mandates that platforms establish a presence with the regulator and allow the FSB with access to communications. Those failing to meet these demands are non-compliant and can get blocked.
Seleznev estimated that possibly tens of millions of Russians had been relying on FaceTime, particularly after voice calls were prohibited on WhatsApp and Telegram. He called the restrictions against the Apple service as "expected" and stated that other platforms failing to cooperate with Roskomnadzor "face blocking – that's obvious."
As another move, the authorities also said it was blocking Roblox, claiming it aimed at protecting children from harmful content. According to media monitoring group Mediascope, the platform was the number two gaming site in Russia last month, with nearly 8 million active users.
Although it is still feasible to get around a few of these blocks by using virtual private network services, those are routinely blocked by the regulator as well.
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