Russians using VPNs to access blocked sites like Facebook and instagram: Report

Russians have been using Virtual private networks, or VPNs, to access blocked sites such as Meta's Facebook and Instagram. “Nearly a third of respondents (30%) have reduced their visits to these [Instagram and Facebook] services due to the need to use a VPN," a study has claimed, according to Moscow's state news agency TASS. At the same time, 26% have not stopped using Facebook, Instagram and other blocked services because their use is not prohibited by law." 

Following the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian government took drastic measures of blocking Western social media services, including Facebook and Instagram as a retaliatory move to the ban on Russian news outlets. Russian citizens are now evading the location-based restrictions by accessing the banned sites on VPN that allows more private browsing by encrypting internet traffic. The VPNs demand in Moscow has surged by 1,092% shortly after the ban was announced on access to Facebook, and Instagram, Top10VPN.com said citing the data to back the figures.

Russians downloaded topmost eight popular VPN apps almost 12,848 times

Since February, Russians have downloaded the topmost eight popular VPN apps almost 12,848 times. And the average weekly sales of the VPNs spiked by a whopping 3,500% since Feb. 24, when Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine. Russians, therefore, are trying to bypass the government's restrictive internet controls and measures to keep updated with recent events. The VPNs also keep internet user’s identities and locations discreet while browsing banned sites. Moscow exercises the internet bans and blockade of the sites under its 2019 “sovereign internet” law that allows the governement to snap access to sites over threat to security or espionage. Popular western websites have also been snapped over issues of protection against the foreign cyberattacks.

But since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, traffic to virtual private network (VPN) service Windscribe from Russia spiked by a factor of twenty, Canada-based VPN company Windscribe's CEO Yegor Sak reportedly said. The firm allows the Russian to evade the Russia President Putin's tightening measures around the internet by masking Russian citizens' exact locations. As Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, hundreds of news outlets websites, and social networks disappeared from the Russian web, disconnecting Russians from the world. A Russian court banned the parent company of Meta, Facebook and Instagram for its “extremist” activity. Platforms were previously blocked by Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor.