Do svidaniya discord: Russia bans it outright for enabling "terrorists and extremists purposes"

The news last week was that the Russian government was preparing to ban Discord. This is the latest step in a larger purge of Western tech firms from the region. This crusade started after the various sanctions imposed by the United States and other countries on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The Putin regime was seeking "digital autonomy" through the use of domestic tech companies with no Western connections.

Discord, based in San Francisco, California's communist hotbed, is estimated to have 30-40 million users around the world, with 4% of its traffic coming from Russia. Roskomnadzor, the Russian state media regulator, has been building a bureaucratic case against Discord. It has issued five rulings since September 20. Russian users have also reported various outages during this time.

Roskomnadzor has officially announced that Discord will be banned in Russia as it appears to have violated the country's law (via The Moscow Times). The media watchdog said that it was "restricted because of the violation of Russian legislation requirements" and had failed to "prevent the use of messages for terrorist and extremist reasons."

Roskomnadzor claimed that Discord ignored a previous court decision in Moscow for "illegal contents" and failed to comply with a 1st October order for the removal of 1,000 items. To be sure, the authorities also add that Discord "actively is used by criminals."

Despite the fact that Telegram is having its own problems in Europe due to a variety of nefarious users, Discord is more popular in Russia.

In a show of solidarity with the purple decadence of the West, Turkey also jumped on board to ban Discord. A court in Ankara ruled that the platform should be closed due to suspicions about "child sexual abuse" and "obscenity". Coordination is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes.

Meric Eryuyek, Istanbul's Upgrade Entertainment, says that Discord has been banned in Turkey. "Communications are dead between our Finland-Turkey studios unless we use VPN, which is illegal.

"I'm assuming that this mindless ban was arbitrary, ignorant, and affected around 800 Turkish Studios & their creative works. Discord is the only thing that can make studios happy. What a stupid, ignorant, destructive action."

Russia and Turkey are joining China in their extreme distrust of Western software companies and their willingness to use state tools to restrict their accessibility. In Russia, the Discord ban comes on the heels of the VPN ban and amid some even more Quixotic ideas like the creation a Russian equivalent of Valve and a national gaming engine.

It's Do svidanyia for Russian users and developers. I've reached out to Discord for a comment and will update if there is a response.