{"id":63439,"date":"2026-02-14T11:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T10:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=63439"},"modified":"2026-02-15T23:13:03","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T22:13:03","slug":"the-blocking-of-telegram-whatsapp-and-youtube-in-russia-and-the-revealing-silence-of-some","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2026\/02\/14\/the-blocking-of-telegram-whatsapp-and-youtube-in-russia-and-the-revealing-silence-of-some\/","title":{"rendered":"The blocking of Telegram, WhatsApp and YouTube in Russia and the revealing silence of some"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This week, Vladimir Putin's dictatorship took further steps to turn Russia into a mere copy of North Korea.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2026\/02\/03\/can-you-imagine-a-politician-forbidding-your-children-from-reading-books-and-censoring-the-ones-you-read\/\">Can you imagine a politician forbidding your children from reading books and censoring the ones you read?<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2026\/02\/05\/a-minister-in-pedro-sanchezs-government-calls-for-ban-twitter-like-in-russia-iran-and-north-korea\/\">A minister in Pedro S\u00e1nchez's government calls for \u201cban Twitter\u201d, like in Russia, Iran and North Korea<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p>Roskomnadzor, Putin's dictatorship's censorship agency, <a href=\"https:\/\/amp.dw.com\/en\/youtube-whatsapp-blocked-in-russia\/a-75940102\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">has blocked access to Telegram, WhatsApp, and YouTube in Russia<\/a>, in a further tightening of censorship in that country. Let's remember that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/mar\/04\/russia-completely-blocks-access-to-facebook-and-twitter\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">in 2022 Russia had already blocked Twitter, Facebook<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2022\/mar\/21\/russia-bans-facebook-and-instagram-under-extremism-law\"\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a>. Currently, Russian internet users rely on two state-controlled social networks to communicate: VKontakte (the Russian equivalent of Facebook) and Max (the Russian version of WhatsApp).<\/p>\n<p><strong>What happened in Russia is an example of how far a politician can go if given the power to limit freedom of expression<\/strong>. It is not an isolated case, nor is it something that only happens in dictatorships like Russia. Let's remember that a few days ago, the president of the Spanish government, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2026\/02\/03\/can-you-imagine-a-politician-forbidding-your-children-from-reading-books-and-censoring-the-ones-you-read\/\">the socialist Pedro S\u00e1nchez<\/a>, outlined his particular plan to censor content on social media<\/a>, using the fight against \"hate\" as a pretext to curtail freedom of expression. Two days after that announcement, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2026\/02\/05\/a-minister-in-pedro-sanchezs-government-calls-for-ban-twitter-like-in-russia-iran-and-north-korea\/\">a communist minister in S\u00e1nchez's government, Sira Rego, openly proposed \"banning Twitter\" in Spain<\/a>. This is precisely what Putin has done in Russia.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The silence of some regarding the Kremlin's ironclad digital censorship is revealing.<\/strong> In some cases, this silence was quite predictable. I'm referring, for example, to pro-Russian propagandists in the West. <strong>In other cases, the silence is stranger.<\/strong> For example, the silence of those who don't support Putin but carefully avoid mentioning the things this dictator does, while simultaneously criticizing similar actions in other countries. Finally, <strong>there is a scandalous silence: that of politicians like S\u00e1nchez and his ministers<\/strong>, a silence that hasn't been broken even by the most indirect criticism of Putin's plans to turn Russia into a new North Korea.<\/p>\n<p><strong>This latest silence is what should most concern all Spaniards<\/strong>, because it expresses our government's alignment with a concept of social media based on total state control of content, not only to prosecute illegal conduct, but also to limit freedom of expression and freedom of information. <strong>If S\u00e1nchez doesn't criticize what Putin has done with social media in Russia, it's because, ultimately, he wants something similar in Spain<\/strong>, further degrading our democracy, just as the socialist government has been doing with its attacks on fundamental rights, judicial independence, and the media.<\/p>\n<p>---<\/p>\n<p><small>Photo: Reuters\/Anton Vaganov.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week, Vladimir Putin&#8217;s dictatorship took further steps to turn Russia into a mere copy of North Korea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10395],"tags":[12063,747,3815,2721,21815,10731,12638,13801,7887,6067,1168,653],"class_list":["post-63439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-media","tag-censorship","tag-facebook","tag-instagram","tag-pedro-sanchez-castejon","tag-roskomnadzor","tag-russia","tag-sira-rego","tag-telegram","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-whatsapp","tag-twitter","tag-youtube"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-11 23:29:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}