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Russia Is Banning Discord (pcgamer.com) 133

Russian authorities are considering a ban on Discord, citing unspecified legal violations. According to the Russian daily newspaper Kommersant, the ban may happen "in the coming days." PC Gamer reports: The opening salvo has already been fired. The Russian state media regulator Roskomnadzor has issued five separate rulings relating to Discord since September 20, which can all now be used as justification for an upcoming ban. Say what you will about authoritarian regimes, but they love their bureaucracy. Kommersant quotes an anonymous official source as saying the ban is being considered for violations of Russian law: needless to say, these violations have not been detailed, nor are likely to be.

Russian users have also complained about periodic outages on Discord over September, with many resorting to VPNs, and both the web and mobile versions of the platform affected. Should the ban become a reality, the big losers will be Russian players and developers, with no obvious domestic replacement. "The problem is that for Russian developers, communication with the community, including the international one, and technical support are implemented through Discord," said Vasily Ovchinnikov, head of Russia's Organization for the Development of the Video Game Industry. Today, a Moscow court fined Discord 3.5 million roubles ($37,675) for, apparently, failing to restrict access to banned information.

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Russia Is Banning Discord

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  • Summary: Russia Is Considering A Ban On Discord

    Journalism 101
  • Banned information (Score:4, Informative)

    by TheNameOfNick ( 7286618 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @02:33AM (#64830441)

    Putin has a small dick, even smaller than his short stature would suggest.

    • He has FASD. Look at the symptoms, see for yourself.

    • by vbdasc ( 146051 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @03:21AM (#64830511)

      You just made Russia ban Slashdot as well.

    • The guy is a madman, holding on to the antiquated idea of "bringing back the glory of the Soviet Union", and not only making the Ukraine suffer, but his own people too. And leaving Europe in a constant state worrying and wondering if he will go ahead and invade Russia's other neighbors and beyond.
  • Time loop (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JamesTRexx ( 675890 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @02:54AM (#64830471) Journal

    I witness history repeating itself.
    Wonder where the equivalent Berlin wall will come down after isolationist Russia scrapes the bottom of its coffers.

    • Re:Time loop (Score:4, Informative)

      by gtall ( 79522 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @05:41AM (#64830651)

      Maybe their regime will collapse when they reach the bottom of their coffins. They're using the same stupid tactics they used against Germany. That pig of a general, Zhukov, had no regard for his own men. And the current Red Army also thinks of troops as cannon fodder. It was the Russian winter and the vast arsenal of the USSR that beat Hitler in Russia. Stalin said it best, quantity has a quality all its own. Too bad that also meant Russian soldiers.

      • Re:Time loop (Score:4, Informative)

        by pereric ( 528017 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @06:08AM (#64830675) Homepage

        Lend-lease also helped quite a bit, with lots of US shipments to the USSR.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          Not just a bit. Without it, Russia would have been defeated.

          • Yeah a lot of people, especially Russians, really miss this one. Their little communist experiment really deprived them of nearly all manufacturing capacity. A lot of people have heard the stories about only a few actually having a weapon, then when that person dies the guy behind him picks up his gun. They wouldn't have even made it that far without lend-lease. Then combine that with Hitler's strategic blunders and the overall failure of the Luftwaffe to do anything meaningful other than temporarily pin do

      • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        Putin is near his end. His body can be seen shaking in public and he's a germaphobe, probably due to strong cancer treatments. His body grows ever skinnier and his face puffier. He's on some funky drugs. He's beginning to resemble a lollypop.

        The war and related sanctions haven't been beneficial to regular citizens at all. They don't need more land, their population is shrinking even. They want economic progress and stability, not an empire without any living young men in it.

        Their next leader will thus likel

        • Why do you expect that after the war ends, Russians will have any much sympathy towards the West? Putin may be wrong on multiple accounts, but one cannot ignore that the West has supplied weapons which killed Russian servicemen and civilians in this war. You might respond that the West had to respond to the war the way it did. Well, in that case, it has chosen its principles over sympathies of Russian people. You can count on that the next President of Russia will be anti-Western. Again, that's the basic
          • If they keep up the internal lock on media and prevent stories from making it out about Russian atrocities being committed. This change of heart has happened many times in the past, it's rare that one side declares war for all eternity merely become one side decided to defend itself against aggression, or because the defender asked for help. But right now most Russians are ignorant of what is happening; and they also know that those who speak up are arrested.

            You could have also said that the USSR isn't go

            • If you want to understand what's going on, here's how to gain knowledge. Before going to bed, say out loud: "I would like to see a dream about what it feels to live in Russia as a Russian citizen". You can write down that or say that, just do it physically. It will help you understand what options exist for your country. That's all you need. (The technique is called dream incubation, in that you can request commentary on what interests you the most. Not demand, just request.)
          • Why do you expect that after the war ends, Russians will have any much sympathy towards the West?

            Because there is a Russian expat community in my area, and a wonderful Russian restaurant & bar where I have gotten to know many Russians over the course of several years. They talk. They talk about life here and back home. They talk about being afraid to go home for a visit as they might not be allowed to leave again due to the war. They talk about how their friends and family back home are doing. They talk about the past. They talk about the future. They talk a lot. There is no mystery in how

      • Note that mostly the front lines come from ethnic caucasians and other non-Russian groups.

      • by Rexdude ( 747457 )
        This 'cannon fodder' narrative deserves to be buried [substack.com].
    • Re:Time loop (Score:4, Insightful)

      by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @07:34AM (#64830781)

      I witness history repeating itself.
      Wonder where the equivalent Berlin wall will come down after isolationist Russia scrapes the bottom of its coffers.

      Not really as there already is a clear border with patrols and what not to stop Russians escaping to the west. Much of it utterly inhospitable (I.E. most of the Finnish border) or having natural obstacles like rivers. Not to mention that unlike East Germany, Russia's neighbours are hostile to Russians, so it won't be easy for them to integrate/find jobs.

      Russia is very much becoming a pariah state but don't make the mistake of thinking it'll be the same as last time.

      • Finnish border isn't bad in the summer. Easy enough to cross that Russia was deliberately sending migrant refugees that way to destabilize Finland, forcing Finland to close the border even to legal traffic.

  • IRC (Score:3, Interesting)

    by engblom ( 2990505 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @03:07AM (#64830495)
    IRC is still very strong among developers and nerds. Hopefully this will lead to an upswing for IRC. Sadly the most likely scenario is that another modern replacement (like matrix) will win.
    • by pereric ( 528017 )

      Matrix is not a bad replacement - especially as it's open standards / open source / open API, distributed and quite easy to bridge to other systems (including IRC). Closed ecosystems, where one company uses technical and legal means to keep information within their system, with their chosen apps, ads and user-data-mining, are much worse. Like Facebook, whatsapp and a bunch of others.

      (and sure, Russia is a dictatorship, rapidly going totalitarian. No wonder the start restricting anything enabling opposing th

      • by Anonymous Coward
        The problem with matrix is that it's essentially a graph database with a chat system on top. That makes it scale very badly and leads to serious performance problems on large channels.

        It's too bad; we could use a more mobile-friendly IRC-like to break the hold of proprietary chat.
  • by CeasedCaring ( 1527717 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @03:56AM (#64830563)

    "Today, a Moscow court fined Discord 3.5 million roubles ($37,675) for, apparently, failing to restrict access to banned information."

    That banned information?

    "Ukraine still exists"

    • Pretty much anything that undercuts Putin's supporting propaganda and politics is currently an offense in Russia, yes.

      This is just performance art to slap a veneer of legitimacy on that. Part of dominating the public is lying to their faces and forcing them to pretend they believe you.

      BUT... it's also basic common sense not to allow the enemy to infiltrate your communications. I'm kind of surprised Russia hasn't just said 'fuck it' and blocked the Internet at its borders except for approved channels.

  • most countries at least try to keep CP out... This is a huge first step
  • by cheesybagel ( 670288 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @04:49AM (#64830615)

    https://t.me/mash/58063 [t.me]

    "The court fined Discord 3.5 million rubles in a case of failure to remove prohibited information. We are talking about materials related to prohibited LGBT and pedophilia.

    In July 2023, the platform was already fined 6 million for 18+ content with minors. Now Roskomnadzor can formally demand to ban Discord's work in Russia."

    • If a story here is about Russia, Apple, or taking the temperature of the Earth - it's propaganda.

      Presumably such payments keep the lights on?

  • by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @05:39AM (#64830649)

    Why can't we have nice things?

  • by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Tuesday October 01, 2024 @07:43AM (#64830795) Homepage
    The one I tried to create an account for wanted my phone number for whatever data collection shenanigans they are doing behind the scenes, seems to be 'restrictive of access' to me. Discord is just another walled garden that people seem to be willing to share their data with.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      used to be low barrier, people swarmed to emoji IRC, now they complain when the privately-owned-centralization chickens come to roost

    • by godrik ( 1287354 )

      I don't know. Discord works. It is easy to use. Most people I know seem to use it. It kind of "just worksTM"

      Eventually, we'll move to something else.

  • Personally I consider this good news. Software developers increasingly offer Discord as the only support option. I have no idea why. It has a horrible user interface and a huge barrier to entry / steep initial learning curve. About a year ago I actually got an account in order to get support with a Steam game I had bought. The process was terribly confusing due to a previous aborted attempt to make an account. The support threads were so chaotic that I got the impression it's hopeless to find anything. Some

    • Personally I consider this good news. Software developers increasingly offer Discord as the only support option. I have no idea why. It has a horrible user interface and a huge barrier to entry / steep initial learning curve. ...

      Maybe, with entire countries blocked from using Discord, developers will finally return to reasonable options. I am not sure why force is even required for this.

      I came to this thread hoping I wasn't the only one who thinks Discord sucks. Closed-source, hard to search, it's awful for trying to do anything useful. If Discord disappeared, nothing of value would be lost.

  • What we knew as the internet is going to become local to the Country you live in ( and Government approved ) versions of itself. :|

    In other words, completely useless.

  • to communicate with right wing influencers in America?

  • I dug into the court docs to try to find what might have been specified as the "illegal information." Surprisingly, the real thrust of what seems to have upset the judge / court was this section:

    ÑÑS ÐÑÐÑÐÐÑÑомÑS Ð ÑÑS ÑZÑбÐ- номÑS ÑÐÑÑÐÐоÑÑOE ÐмÑf, ÐÐÑÐ

    • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

      Ironically, it is possible to setup channels that function exactly the same as a web-based forum with all the benefits of real-time chat making the entire argument moot. And just like regular web-based forums, the ability to find information/help is highly dependent on how well the information is laid out.

      • Skimming further down in the translation, it seems Discord's lawyer presented the same defense about "Channels", to which the Russian judge said:

        Channels and all other content posted to Discord are not indexed by Yandex. Discord reduces discoverability outside the niche community that creates the disorganized content.

        Before your legal team wastes more of the court's time championing the use of Channels, I would like to remind you that your chairs are closest to the open windows of this 4-story courthouse

        • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

          1. I'm surprised Discord even bothered to send a lawyer.
          2. If I were the lawyer, I would challenge this judge even more. Want to make not even thinly veiled threats? Cool, now I'm going to push ALL your buttons and really piss you off. Doesn't matter if I win or lose. Doesn't matter if you try and throw me out that window like so many others. The angrier the judge, the more I actually won. Leading to my next points to try and anger them...
          3. If someone is capable of searching on Yandex, they're capable of u

          • My interpretation of these translated court documents is that the concern is over siloed technical content. Step back and consider your statement:

            If someone is capable of searching on Yandex, they're capable of using the search in Discord. Especially if Yandex at least leads them to the correct Discord server.

            Here's a scenario: I need to know exactly which transmission will work in my 2007 F150 4x4 truck. I'm at the scrap yard surveying available donor trucks. I'm able to review the codes on the transmiss

            • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

              Ok, well first of all, I wouldn't be at the scrap yard until I knew what I was looking for to begin with.

              Secondly, I'm not for or against forums, but if a group of hobbyists (or any group, company, etc) choose to move over to Discord instead of a forum, then that's the group decision. Anyone can create a Discord server for free. Are there free forums and website hosting that you can create a forum? Sure. Name one decent one (and don't say reddit, because Russia will block that on a dime, too). I don't know

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