The head of the Ministry of Digital Development spoke out against punishments for the use of VPN

by time news

The authorities will not introduce punishment for those who use VPN services to bypass the blocking of Internet resources, Maksut Shadayev, head of the Ministry of Digital Development, said in an interview with RBC TV channel.

“There will be absolutely no penalties for users. We are against it. Therefore, those who really need it will have such an opportunity, and will continue to have it, and will keep it, ”Shadayev emphasized. However, he noted that the use of such applications is not welcome.

According to him, until February 24, a total of three blocked sites – Facebook, Instagram (owned by Meta Corporation, recognized as extremist in Russia and banned) and Twitter – accounted for 10-12% of all traffic. However, after the blocking, the share of VPN services that helped bypass the restrictions began to account for only 20% of the previous traffic of the three social networks.

In early June, the Proton VPN service reported problems connecting to servers in Russia. The company noted that they are studying the causes of what happened and did not make any changes on their part. Also, some users complained about a failure when connecting to the service to bypass Lantern locks. Roskomnadzor later confirmed the blocking of Proton VPN and several other services.

At the end of March, the head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Alexander Khinshtein, announced that the Duma was not preparing legislative initiatives to block VPN services. Andrey Klishas, ​​head of the Federation Council committee on constitutional legislation and state building, added that Russia does not plan to criminalize the use of such programs.

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