Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ Muscovites are being locked into an ever-growing 'digital gulag', complain Russian warbloggers, as a still-mysterious mobile Internet shutdown in central Moscow enters its second week. The shutdown is reported to be causing huge commercial losses and inconvenience. ⬇️

2/ Starting March 5th, Internet access in central Moscow was shut down, apparently on the orders of the Russian government. It has even extended to shutting down Wi-Fi on the Moscow Metro and the parliamentary Wi-Fi network in the State Duma.

3/ 'Blue Beard' says the city is being plunged back into the primeval darkness of 2007:

"The only app that works in the city centre in the evening, regardless of mobile internet conditions, is Yandex Music.

Meanwhile, Sberbank and T-Bank's banking apps have crashed."

4/ "Oh well, no banking, but at least there's music.

And in the Kremlin area near the Lenin Library, you're transported not even back to 2007, but perhaps back to the days of Alexander Graham Bell, since making a mobile phone call near the Red Castle is simply impossible."

5/ But what the blogger calls a "Satanic experience" has got worse since then:

"Firstly, the zone with poor mobile internet service is expanding beyond the Central Administrative District."

6/ "The spot where Telegram starts working tolerably in the eastern part of the city center is between Elektrozavodskaya and Semyonovskaya.

Secondly, in the very centre, Yandex services, which were functioning normally just yesterday, are already experiencing outages.

7/ "No music, no taxis.

Speaking of taxis, half of the Danilovsky District is gradually plunging into our beloved 2007. Taxis in the Yerevan Plaza area are already being hailed [manually] by the public."

And it got even worse the next day:

8/ "After whitelisting all key British banks so that respected citizens would be aware of the movement of funds withdrawn abroad, and after Russian bank apps still weren't functioning properly in the city center, someone apparently decided that Yandex Music was just too much fun.

9/ "So they shut it down, too.

Of all the music services, Apple Music is suddenly the only one working.

10/ "From Novokuznetskaya to Elektrozavodskaya, all you can do is sing and dance. It's a joyous celebration of the achievements of Russian thought, in the "hold and don't let go" format.

11/ "Incidentally, most kiosks, tobacco shops, and grocery stores can't accept card payments. They demand cash."

'Zhivoff' notes that Internet shutdowns have been commonplace elsewhere in Russia since 2022, but are only ever explained in the vaguest terms:

12/ "I see people's justifiable outrage at the senseless, unjustified internet and communications blockades in Moscow.

13/ "Let it be known, colleagues, that half of Russia already lives like this. In Crimea, they shut down the internet every other day; in the Krasnodar region, the Urals, and even Siberia, they manage to terrorize people.

14/ "And each time, it's either without any explanation or clear framework, or in the "interests of security." Whose security? Where are the criteria? It's just that Moscow was the last to notice.

15/ "And of course, initially, all this was introduced to combat drones. I'd like to ask, has it helped? Perhaps you could report back for a change, or are reports just for suckers, and normal people always take their word for it?!

16/ "But the problem is, there's no connection, and drones are flying, as I was told, for example, from the Volgograd region. And it would be fine if Telegram didn't work; nothing works at all, for example, the MTS or Sber ecosystem.

17/ "But, as it turned out recently, British bank websites are working. And there's another trick. While some people are without internet, others have it without any restrictions on their "whitelisted numbers." They "need it for work." Excellent segregation, let's keep it up.

18/ "Meanwhile, communication restrictions in central Moscow caused 5 billion rubles [$62m] in damage. Now imagine the damage inflicted on regions that live in this rhythm year-round. White lists, white numbers, segregation, and so on. Is this our sovereignty?"

19/ 'KARNAUKHOV' notes the apparent implementation of whitelisting so that people can only use state-approved online services. He suggests, probably rightly, that this offers the authorities an excellent new means of extorting money from businesses which depend on the Internet:

20/ "I've reread everything written about the lack of service in the Central Administrative District. You can only call. And even this service isn't being provided properly. So, almost all the reports boil down to testing "whitelists" ...

21/ "The same applies here: you can only use services that are allowed: Gosuslugi, Sberbank, Parking, EMIAS (probably), and so on.

22/ "AI, foreign libraries, instant messengers, VPNs for working with AI... This is impossible to use now, because it will likely later be classified as using hostile resources that threaten security.

23/ "To a certain extent, I agree with this, because to get on the "whitelist," T-Bank, for example, will have to pay a lot of money, and so will others, which means revenue for the treasury. This means new schools and kindergartens.

24/ "The Lenin Library and the Library of Foreign Literature will come to life. We'll have to stand in line for the right to read. I haven't been able to use CyberLeninka for a whole week, and it's completely stopped my work. And I have to get to the offline library...

25/ "In other words, I'm a little creeped out that someone is even thinking about "whitelists" of this format. And then what? Will there be a "food whitelist" too? And a "friends whitelist"?..."

26/ 'DELYAGIN'S Special' applauds the government for cutting off Internet access for Russia's puppet parliament as well:

27/ "The State Duma's Wi-Fi has stopped working. Just yesterday, it wasn't working on all phones, and now both networks (one for everyone, the other password-protected—and it wasn't there yesterday either) are simply down.

28/ "I wholeheartedly agree: deputies must be united with the people. When United Russia's policy of strangulation (or "cooling off") finishes off the sewer system, the toilets in the Duma will have to be shut down too."

29/ 'Soldier of Fortune' is simply frustrated by the misdirected effort and expense:

"Honestly, I'm sick and tired of this crap. The country is being massively isolated, and only the most blind fool wouldn't understand it."

30/ "A huge amount of money is being spent on things that could have been invested in the army, air defence, and protecting border communities."

31/ 'Papyrus' is appalled by his discovery that Russia is, in fact, an increasingly oppressive dictatorship:

"How these “super-brains” are driving me crazy by turning my country into North Korea!"

32/ "If even a patriotic person like me is fed up with all these bans and blocks, I can’t even imagine what’s going on in the minds of ordinary, apolitical people.

Well, it’s no big deal—we’ll just put up with it for now, put up with it… BUT THEN WE’LL REALLY MAKE THEM PAY!!!"

33/ Meanwhile, as the Russian media reports a boom in sales of pagers, paper maps, and landline phones, Fighterbomber looks forward to Russia stepping boldly back into the past:

34/ "We didn't live well before, so there's no point in starting now.

Our ancestors got by just fine without all your gadgets and were perfectly happy.

Again, cartography and navigating by the stars are useful skills that should have been introduced in schools long ago.

35/ "And we should teach children to wipe their asses with a burdock leaf. Let them be prepared for harsh and merciless progress from a young age." /end

Sources:
🔹 t.me/beard_tim/31460
🔹 t.me/beard_tim/31484
🔹 t.me/beard_tim/31492
🔹 t.me/zhivoff/25605
🔹 t.me/delyagin/38698
🔹 t.me/Soldieroffortu…
🔹 t.me/filimonovRus/9…
🔹 t.me/bomber_fighter…