When users experienced a “metallic buzzing” on WhatsApp and Telegram calls starting in Aug. 2025, Russia’s state internet regulator, Roskomnadzor, claimed it was because the platforms acted as aids in alleged fraud and terrorism. Just a week after the initial interference, the Kremlin announced a mandate that the VK messaging app Max would come preinstalled […]
Tag: The Great Firewall
A Case for Opening the Great Firewall
“Across the Great Wall we can reach every corner in the world,” read the first email from China to Germany in 1987. Today, the prophecy looks rather ironic; China’s internet censorship protocol, “the Great Firewall,” blocks Chinese netizens from Google, Facebook, and the rest of the world. To ask for total internet freedom is impractical, […]