COVID-19, an excuse to block Facebook, Twitter and Telegram

The quality of access to Facebook, Twitter and Telegram that do not comply with the requirements of Russian law will decrease. The announcement came from the deputy of the State Duma.

So, the representatives of the Internet industry who joined the Zoom conference mentioned that the transition to remote work and mass online training made the Russian internet services fail. During the conference, the participants talked about the digital future of the country.

The current situation is also a proof that schools and universities are not prepared for the online format. “My three children and I experienced the whole “charm” of distance learning: all day we do not so much do tasks as solve technical problems with non-working cameras, communications,” said Natalia Kaspersky, President of the Info Watch group of companies.

So, Ilya Massukh, a member of the software expert Council at the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media, said that Russia is not yet ready to replace “live” services with digital ones. Also, he mentioned that the servers of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation fell on April 1. “Even these servers, which are designed for heavy load, did not pass the test.”

Moscow to monitor citizens with QR codes

Recently, Moscow authorities announced they would monitor the movements of citizens and would introduce QR codes to do so. Thus, they can monitor compliance with the self-isolation regime. Also, they said they developed a special application for this. Thus, the introduction of QR codes is necessary. Still, experts are confident that after the pandemic it will be necessary to re-introduce personal data protection.

Quality of access to Facebook, Twitter and Telegram will decrease

Anton Gorelkin, the Deputy of the State Duma, proposed to prioritize the traffic of domestic sites and services for the time of self-isolation. Still, in case of overload of communication networks due to remote work, the quality of access to Facebook, Twitter and Telegram will decrease. Still, this rule would apply to all the networks that do not comply with the requirements of the Russian law. Facebook and Twitter do not transfer the data of local users to Russia, while Telegram is blocked for not transmitting the FSB encryption keys.

According to E Hacking News, Anton Gorelkin was also the one who came with an initiative to limit the share of foreign capital in significant Internet resources to 20%. This forced Yandex to change the its management structure.