"Office of stupid people"

Many services in the Russian Federation submitted to the authorities and stopped opening with VPN. Moreover, sometimes they do not work from abroad (although they should). User reaction is, well, understandable

Carefully! This material contains obscenities and offensive tweets. We present them because they best illustrate the emotions of Russians towards domestic companies.

Since mid-April, large Russian companies began to restrict access to their Internet platforms to users who have a VPN enabled. This is one of the requirements of the Ministry of Digital Development, which is trying to combat the means of bypassing blocking. As a result, many people in Russia stopped opening banking applications, marketplaces, entertainment services, navigation tools, and social networks when VPN was turned on. At the moment there are already several dozen resources, and their list continues to grow.

Companies that refuse to comply with the new requirements of the Russian authorities may be excluded from the “white list.” RBC sources also reported another possible punishment - deprivation of IT benefits to violators (this includes deferment from the army for employees).

Journalists and experts immediately had many questions , the main one being how should companies distinguish VPN traffic from regular international traffic? The general director of VimpelCom (Beeline brand) Sergei Anokhin said at the beginning of April that this is impossible.

A special manual from the Ministry of Digital Development on how to identify means of bypassing blocking on user devices was supposed to help solve this problem. However, judging by numerous posts on social networks , these recommendations do not work - not only users with a VPN are subject to restrictions, but also those who are simply located outside of Russia. And this makes users very angry.

The changes in access rules also came as a surprise to Russian tourists. They complain that they cannot, for example, buy return tickets through the websites of Russian airlines or transfer money while abroad. One of the readers of the Astra publication said that it is not possible to even find out the weather forecast, since the Gismeteo website does not open from outside the Russian Federation.

Vice-President of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia Artur Muradyan, in a comment to Kommersant, noted that so far the problem can hardly be called widespread, but gradually the number of complaints is increasing:

The problem now is not systemic. But the intensity began to increase. In popular destinations - Türkiye, Thailand, Egypt, Vietnam - when connecting to Wi-Fi, access is lost. <…> What can you recommend to Russian tourists? Have a Russian SIM card with enough traffic to, for example, purchase additional reservations or change tickets. We were promised that Max would be convenient to use everywhere, including abroad, but since April 17, the national messenger also began to block its platform if you have a VPN detected. In fact, now there is nothing left abroad except regular mobile communications.

The recommendation to use a Russian SIM card also does not always work. Problems arise not only when connecting to local Wi-Fi networks, but also from the mobile Internet. Vladislava, who lives in Turkey, told the publication that even a VPN configured for Russia is unstable.

However, it is still unclear on what principle the blocking occurs. Meduza was convinced that in most cases, Russian applications from abroad still work, regardless of the country. This is confirmed by messages on social networks. For example, users are still able to access Gosuslugi from Canada , USA , Estonia , Georgia and many other countries. The same as in the Max messenger.

Most often, services work even if you turn on a VPN outside the Russian Federation, configured, for example, for one of the European countries. At the same time, Meduza knows of several cases where one user retained access, but another could not access Russian resources, despite the fact that they were in the same city and connected to the same Internet provider. Sometimes the application may also not work, but the service website will open through the browser.

Users in Russia are also furious. They accuse Russian companies of hypocrisy and remove their applications

People in Russia are also very unhappy with the new restrictions. Due to the fact that many foreign resources are blocked in the country, they are forced to use VPN often. And due to the blocking of Telegram, which has been going on for more than a month, we are forced to keep it on all the time.

To bypass the restrictions, they either have to constantly turn the VPN on and off (and doing this several dozen times a day is inconvenient), or get a second phone that does not have any means of bypassing the blocking, exclusively for Russian applications. Also, in some VPN clients you can configure traffic tunneling so that domestic services work bypassing the VPN. However, this option does not always work - some applications still see the means of bypassing the blocking.

On social networks it is easy to come across many angry and often obscene posts addressed to companies that have agreed to comply with the requirements of the Ministry of Digital Development.

Moreover, sometimes restrictions are set even by those services that initially promised to operate services without an Internet connection.

Some users try to justify the actions of large companies by the fact that they actually have no choice: they will either comply with the requirements of the authorities, or they will lose the opportunity to fully conduct business in the country.

However, the company will still lose some part of its profits. Users, outraged by the new policy of Russian services, began to delete their applications and use alternative ones. But it’s difficult to say how widespread this phenomenon is.

People are especially outraged that these same companies continue to maintain accounts on social networks, which are also blocked in Russia. That is, it is obvious that they themselves continue to use VPN. But their clients are prohibited from doing this.

Are you angry about blocking? We understand! No one should tell you what to read or where to communicate. We are doing everything to help people in Russia maintain access to a free Internet. But we need your help. Dear readers not in Russia, we ask you to make a small monthly donation. We know there are hundreds more people who could do this. Dear readers in Russia, you also have the opportunity to support us. Together we will get through this.

"Jellyfish"