How to combat Russian censorship from virtual

Indeed, in early March, the Russian parliament passed a law prohibiting what is considered “fake” news about the military . You are sentenced to 15 years in prison. And this means anything that contradicts official propaganda, and the use of the word “aggression” to refer to what is happening in Ukraine may be the cause of the conflict.Their preferred term is “special military operations.”

Due to this measure, regional and international journalistic organizations have suspended reports made within the country. On the other hand, the independent press of the country was closed or banned.

However, thanks to the ability to viralize the content offered by the Internet, several users have challenged this restriction. This is the case of Marina Obsianikova, editor of Channel One. Today, on the main Russian evening live news, she says, “Stop the war, don't believe in propaganda, they're lying.” And the song: “Stop the war! There is no war!” In a short time, these interventions went viral and made headlines around the world.

Some media have launched Telegram channels so that they can continue to be known to the Russian public without restrictions or censorship. Some of these media outlets have highlighted a significant increase in the audience in the corresponding communication channels.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other officials of the country recorded and shared a video showing the harshness of the war. In fact, during a speech in the US Congress this Wednesday, the president said a heartbreaking video prepared by the government while doctors tried to save lives in hospitals It showed graphic images of civilian casualties, including body images of seriously injured children.

The video began with a joyful scene from the usual life of Ukraine just a few weeks ago, and now juxtaposes the image of life there. Previously, blood was spilled during the treatment of undamaged and destroyed buildings, dead in mass graves, and wounded. Farewell tears.

The content was immediately replicated on the web. As you can see, censorship has not completely silenced the opposite opinion. In fact, several media outlets and social networks, such as Twitter or Facebook, have begun to implement various measures to help Russians avoid censorship by using... Tor is an option to protect traffic connections and routes.

The download of VPN applications that can bypass censorship has also increased. A VPN is a virtual private network and constitutes a network technology used to connect one or more computers to a private network using the Internet. This technology replaces the IP provided by the Internet provider, which can be configured according to the settings desired by the user.

The Washington Post analyzes in a recent article that some computer programmers gathered together to create a solution to combat censorship. This is the case of the Squadron 303 group (see the aerial squadron crossing Nazi fighters during World War II), which developed a website that displays the email address, telephone or WhatsApp number of a randomly selected Russian citizen. Pre-written messages that visitors cansend to participate in the conversation from their account.

In recent weeks, millions of messages have been shared that include photos of the war and data on civilian deaths. In a short time, the group switched from using one server at the beginning of the month to the 16 servers it currently has. The idea is to continue expanding this structure.

News sites share another fact. A search engine called Rusleaks was created. The engine aggregates more than a dozen databases that are estimated to provide personal information of Russian soldiers, including names, addresses, phone numbers and passport details of tens of thousands of people.

The data was not fully confirmed, and the Ukrainian government released some records, increasing the risk of false information. However, one software developer, who was part of the group, said that this data could be used to inform the Russian public about what the government is doing. “We are fighting at too many frontiers right now, and this is definitely one of them... whatever it takes to make our voices louder, he said, as quoted by the Washington Post.

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