A topic that has been touched on a few times on the forum -- this is a detailed look at the topic.
Balancing between values of freedom and security, last May Ukraine sanctioned the most popular Russian Internet services.
The aim was to defend its citizens from the Kremlin’s surveillance and propaganda. But this move has more far-reaching ramifications for Ukrainian society.
Though this was done in hardly a transparent way, it breaks the life patterns of Ukrainians in the Internet world.
In May 2017, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, on the basis of a decision by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, imposed sanctions on some Russian Internet services, like VKontakte and Odnoklassniki (Russian social networks, equivalents of Facebook); Mail.ru (an email service); and Yandex (a search engine).
Online Wars: How Ukrainians Live Without the Russian InternetKyiv said it had evidence that Russian security services exploit Runet, the Russian Internet, to spread Kremlin propaganda messages and to collect personal data of Ukrainians, including state employees and soldiers fighting against Russian aggression in the Eastern Ukraine. Sanctioning Runet, Kyiv is defending itself from foreign surveillance and propaganda, the government said.
The cause is just, but the execution causes doubts in terms of its accordance with fundamental rights. This ban was presented as economic sanctions against Russian companies providing Internet services. But, in fact, it goes far beyond business or the economy. Critics said it violates human rights: freedom of expression and privacy.
It can be hard to find an alternative solution on how to protect Ukrainians from Russian surveillance in social media, their privacy (principle of necessity and proportionality). Also, Ukraine’s security service has asked these Russian Internet companies to react to incitement of violence, but there was no response from the Russian side. Yet there are other ways of countering propaganda within the network without limiting freedom of expression. Therefore, many questions remain on whether the move was necessary or proportional. Moreover, the aim and evidence was not fully communicated and explained to a wider audience. And it’s not an independent apolitical court that made the decision.
However, what’s done is done. Today, the decision has started to affect society, which is gradually becoming more vigilant regarding developments on the Internet. “Before the blocking, discussion on Internet freedom and digital rights was hardly present in society. Now it has shifted to a new level. Without the blocking and, as a result, the political debate, it would have been easier to push through other Internet restrictions,” Vitalii Moroz, Head of new media department at Internews-Ukraine, a Ukrainian NGO, told us. This debate helped, in part, to resist such legislative initiatives as pre-trial blocking of websites and the possibility to restrict access to information.
After blocking, the audience of VKontakte fell by 50%, while that of Yandex and Mail.ru – fell by 75% and Odnoklassniki by 80%, according to data provided by Gemius, a company specialising in gathering, processing, and analysing data on the behaviour of Internet users.
At the same time, the outreach of Facebook increased by around 7-12%, of Google – by about 8-9%. The audience of Ukrainian Internet service Ukr.net increased by around 6%.
http://ukraineworld.org/2017/12/online-wars-how-ukrainians-live-without-the-russian-internet/