
Ukraine bans its top social networks because they are Russian - JumpCrisscross
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21722360-blocking-websites-may-be-pointless-it-could-help-president-poroshenkos-popularity-ukraine?cid1=cust/ddnew/n/n/n/20170519n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/na/Daily_Dispatch/email&etear=dailydispatch
======
nitwit005
Probably less that they're "Russian", than that they hand over all their data
to the Russian government. VK was taken over, seemingly because of pressure to
turn over Euromaidan protestor's names.

~~~
owebmaster
So do Facebook and Google to US gov. But I do agree that Brazil should follow
this trend and shutdown Google and FB.

~~~
slim
Which proves social networks are political assets

------
civilian
I'm not a fan of blocking things on the internet, but this seems like a good
move for them. If your people aren't going to perform SecOps, then you need
to.

I wonder how many Ukrainian fighters have posted videos or pictures on VK?

~~~
konart
If you check ukrainian conflict subreddit or some of the Facebooks accounts of
the volunteers you will find out that they were actively using VK to track
their enemies (army and mercenaries from Russia) and to communicate with
"sympathisers" from Russia.

Anyway - now they will post them on Facebook - what does it change? It is an
open info regardless.

------
pjc50
Reminds me of bellingcat's excellent work in tracking the MH17 missile
launcher on social media, e.g. [https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-
europe/2017/04/04/pho...](https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-
europe/2017/04/04/photographs-ukrainian-buks-geolocated-nearly-three-years-
later/)

------
Grue3
Meanwhile Russia has banned LinkedIn, WeChat, LINE and plans to ban Telegram
as well. At least Ukraine has a very good excuse.

------
gyrocode
Limiting access to information is always a bad decision. If someone wants to
access banned resources, there is a way to do that with VPN.

~~~
subterfudge4
It could be a problem if Russian government is getting all the data. A rising
concern about Facebook in India remains the same.

------
gragas
To me, this just shows that Poroshenko does not represent Ukraine. It's yet
another example of a failed attempt to label Russia as the baddies.

~~~
kesselvon
they're literally engaged in a war against russia, so can you blame them?

~~~
krick
More like a war against themselves, it seems.

~~~
kesselvon
Donbass militias are moscow backed and funded.

~~~
gragas
More than half of Crimea was always ethnic Russian. If the people of Ukraine
want to be part of Russia, let them.

It is not the case that everyone thinks Russia is some horrible, evil country.

~~~
kesselvon
Front lines aren't in Crimea. At least learn a little before making definitely
statements

