Russia Is Banning Discord

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.

Banned information

[TheNameOfNick]

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

Re: Banned information

[ArmoredDragon]

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

Re:

[DrMrLordX]

He didn't work at a McDonald's though.

Re:Banned information

[vbdasc]

You just made Russia ban Slashdot as well.

Time loop

[JamesTRexx]

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

Sad but not surprising.

[La Gris]

Discord Inc. is a US company.
US with OTAN are at war with Russia.
Russia get economical sanctions being reinforced.

Anyone is surprised that Russia is not nice with US companies?

Re:

[vbdasc]

US with OTAN are at war with Russia.

I must be living under a rock, because I've never heard about that.

Not that it isn't likely to happen though, I will know it happened when the nukes start flying.

Re:

[DrMrLordX]

Tencent has a big stake in Discord. Which makes this matter all the more interesting.

IRC

[engblom]

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.

Re:

[pereric]

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

Snooping in like the EU?

[thesjaakspoiler]

I don't know what is worse, not being able to use a service or some secret EU agency secretly listening in on Discord because Von Der Leyen doesn't like to hear opinions that are not approved by the EU Ministry of Truth.

We all know why they're REALLY doing this

[CeasedCaring]

"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"