Russia is strengthening its censorship…

Photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 4, 2022.  Photo credit: Alexey Nikolsky / Sputnik / AFP via Getty Images. Article by Shirin Ghaffary. Vox: Recode – March 4, 2022.

After a week of threats and half-measures, the Russian government has officially blocked Facebook and continues to restrict Twitter from the tens of millions of users in the country who use the apps daily.

The move comes at a time when the Russian government is unsurprisingly increasing its crackdown on the free press and other sources of information to control the narrative about its invasion of Ukraine (which Russian media is not allowed to call a war, but instead a “special military operation”). In the past few weeks, the few remaining independent local news outlets in Russia that are not government-affiliated have been shut down, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a new law that threatens up to 15 years in jail for Russians who post “fake news” about the invasion, and the government has already arrested thousands of anti-war protesters. […]

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