Russia has officially blocked the popular messaging platform Discord, citing violations of the country's internet laws. The announcement came from Roskomnadzor, Russia's telecommunications regulator, on Tuesday.
According to Roskomnadzor, Discord failed to remove content from its service that the Russian government had deemed illegal. Just last week, the regulator had ordered Discord to delete almost 1,000 prohibited items. Discord also faces previous fines from Russia for not taking down banned material in a timely manner.
However, Discord has yet to comment publicly on the ban. The San Francisco-based company did not respond to a request for comment from TASS, Russia's state news agency.
As one of the largest digital gathering places for communities and friends, Discord allows users to connect through voice, video and text chat services. It has gained popularity among video gamers but is also used in a variety of other communities. Prior to the ban in Russia, the app had an estimated 150 million monthly active users globally.
Russia has tightened restrictions on foreign internet and social media platforms since invading Ukraine in February 2022. Twitter, which has rebranded itself as X, was blocked along with Facebook and Instagram soon after the war began.
Roskomnadzor regularly ordered platforms like Discord, YouTube and TikTok to remove content about drugs, extremism and allegedly false information regarding Russian authorities. Non-compliance resulted in repeated fines.
Similarly, Roskomnadzor added the Steam Community website to its banned list in 2022. However, the telecommunications regulator removed the website from its prohibited sites register within a few hours. Roskomnadzor then stated the content in question had been removed, so the ban was no longer required.
The crackdown on apps is part of the Kremlin's push to control the information landscape in Russia and limit citizens' access to outside views challenging the official narrative on the war in Ukraine. Now, it has become impossible to access Discord in Russia without using VPN workarounds.
Source: Reuters
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