Russians Are Finding Ways Around Putin's Internet Blockade

Russians are rapidly turning to internet services that cloak their location to help bypass restrictions on accessing foreign social media and news sites. From a report: Providers of virtual private networks, or VPNs, are recording a surge in usage from Russia after the Kremlin cracked down on Facebook and other services as part of a broader effort to silence dissent and limit information about its invasion of Ukraine. "In the past week, we saw traffic to our website from Russia increase by around 330% week over week," Harold Li, vice president of ExpressVPN, said in an email to Bloomberg on Wednesday. As of Tuesday, Russian interest in VPNs was more than eight times pre-invasion levels, according to data gathered by Top10VPN. Usage peaked at more than 10 times on March 5, the day after Facebook and Twitter were blocked by Russian authorities.

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