Roskomnadzor re-blocks Meduza, TJournal and Bumaga

At least three independent outlets, previously blocked — Meduza, TJournal and Bumaga — have been relisted in the register of blocked media.

Earlier, Roskomnadzor restricted access at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office dated 24 February under Article 15.3 of the Federal Law ‘On Information’. As of 23 March, the resources have been entered into the register for the second time, now at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office dated 16 March.

The initial blocking by Roskomnadzor cited the dissemination of ‘false information regarding the essence of the special military operation on Ukrainian territory’. The substance of the Prosecutor General’s Office’s new allegations remains unknown.

According to RoskomSvoboda data, in total by the Prosecutor General’s Office’s request of 16 March, 49 resources have been blocked, including BBC Russian Service (blocked again), Caucasian Knot (blocked again), Bellingcat (blocked again), Current Time (blocked again), as well as Ukrainian outlets UNIAN, Censor.net, Ukrainska Pravda, RBC.ua, Podrobnosti, Obozrevatel and others.

Earlier, on the night of 4 March, Russians faced issues accessing Meduza, the BBC, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Deutsche Welle, as well as Facebook, App Store and Google Play.

On 4 March, Roskomnadzor blocked access to Facebook and Twitter. From 14 March, the agency restricted access to Instagram.

On 21 March, the Moscow Tverskoy Court ruled that the company Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is “an extremist organization”.

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