“VKontakte” blocks the public “Mediazones. Belarus”, “Mirrors” and “Springs” in Belarus

The social network “VKontakte” has limited access to the communities of the publications “Zerkalo”, “Mediazona. Belarus” (the Russian “Mediazona” was declared a foreign agent in the Russian Federation) and the human rights center “Vesna”. The organizations themselves reported this. The communities were blocked at the request of the Ministry of Information of Belarus.

The reason for blocking was the provision of the Belarusian law “On the Mass Media”, which prohibits the dissemination on the Internet of information “aimed at propaganda of war, extremist activities or containing calls for such activities, pornography, violence and cruelty, including propagandizing or inciting suicide, other information , the spread of which is capable of harming national interests. In May 2022, Mediazone. Belarus” and its social media accounts were declared extremist in Belarus. The same was done in the country with all the materials of “Zerkalo” (in August 2021) and “Spring” (in January 2022).

The practice of blocking pages on social networks declared extremist in Belarus is not new. “It’s just that it hasn’t been used against the media before,” Boris Goretsky, deputy chairman of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, told Kommersant. “I don’t remember any other social networks (except VKontakte).— ”b”) blocked public pages at the request of the Ministry of Information.” VK did not respond to Kommersant’s request.

Communities “Mediazones. Belarus” and “Mirrors” on VKontakte, as well as their sites, are also blocked in Russia at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office. In 2022, the department began to block Internet resources with information about the military operation in Ukraine, which was declared unreliable in Russia.

More about blocking – in the material “Kommersant” “Runet was sifted through a filter”.

Yuri Litvinenko