Global Social Media Practice - & Russia
Through services like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat that everyone is able to make new like-minded connections, keep up with old friends, organize social events or even creep on exes to see how miserable they are without us. Social media has become so essential in our everyday lives that we take for granted. There is freedom in such open information and the ability to communicate extensively. But social media is more than just freedom. It is so powerful that it has destabilized oppressive governments and saved many lives.
Imagine all of that was suddenly taken away. What would you feel? Losing the right to free speech, express oneself or losing the ability to communicate in chaotic times could isolate the entire population and threaten their lives. Some governments around the world are looking at this precise thing to do by banning social media services within their borders. There are people all over the world who have their data consumption, media and internet access strictly monitored and censored by their government. How do they even do this? There are few different methods most oppressive nation use to block not only social media but any site that has a position that criticizes the national governmental regime or religion. One, demand that the internet service providers within that nation to block them and two, limit the use of VPNs. There are other ways as well but these are the main two examples.
And what countries are blocking social media websites? China, Turkey, Vietnam, Iran, Bangladesh, and North Korea to name a few. The great firewall of China was created for the explicit reason to keep blacklisted websites away from the eyes of its people. They have shut down access to three main social channels in 2009, more than a year before the Arab Spring. They ban VPNs except for governmental purposes.
Let us touch on the Russian Federation this time. Russia has an estimate of 109.6 million Internet users which is considered the largest Internet population out of any country in Europe and the sixth largest base of Internet users in the world. Despite having a huge population that estimates around 143,375,006 (in the year 2017), the country’s Internet penetration is at 76.4%, which is relatively low compared with the UK and Germany which are at 94.8% and 89.6% respectively.
It is stated that the most active social media platform used is Youtube which takes up to 85% of their population, followed by VK which takes up 83% while for Instagram and Facebook the percentage out of their population only takes up to 46% and 39%. Linkedin is blocked in Russia since the year 2016 and is still is. VK or as what they called it Vkontakte, which is like a combination of Facebook and file sharing platform is by far the most popular and largest social media platform in Russia with over 46.6 million users. Users can display their profile and add others to follow their post updates just like on Facebook. OK.ru or originally called Odnoklassniki is another social network that has over 31.5 million users, is starting to catch up with VK and it functions much like it as well. Moi Mir is also a social network platform which is an extension of their email provider Mail.ru much like Google+ and is developing into a social hub. Mail.ru also owns OK and VK (Smith 2016). Russia has theirs on YouTube where they call it Rutube but it has not achieved the incredible reach of YouTube. However, Russia is threatening to ban Facebook and Instagram if they do not comply with the law to store data on Russian servers (Bennetts 2019). Telecommunication companies in Russia are required to install “security” programs on their system by the System of Operational Investigatory Measures which will give access to the government to spy on user activities without any warrant.
These few numbers of countries throughout the world have taken extraordinary steps to restrict access of their people to social media websites, and this may create a censored environment free from the eyes of the rest of the world. But the question, is social media a right? A basic human right? I say that everyone has their own right. However, if we are given the right to be free to do whatever we want, we must also know how to be nice, well-behaved beings. But because of some people’s loss of control over themselves and their selfish actions has misuse that freedom, the scale of human rights ends up getting controlled by the law of a certain country. If not for these kinds of people with these kinds of mindset, the world would have been a better place.
References:
Bennetts, M 2019, 'Facebook and Twitter could be blocked in Russia in data storage row', the Guardian, 17th of April, viewed 14 June 2019, <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/17/facebook-and-twitter-face-russian-sanctions-in-data-storage-row?fbclid=IwAR2Fj0ljrg7IkphSvdHR523Rc8HTIQlZdOfT02MjJa13Ykvr1vXIA1H1CU4>.
Bradbury, T 2019, 'These countries have outlawed social media',CyberGhost Privacy Hub, 8th of March, viewed 21 May 2019, <https://www.cyberghostvpn.com/privacyhub/countries-ban-social-media/>.
Gupta, A 2019, 'List of countries that have banned Social Media for its citizens', The Windows Club, 16th of April, viewed 21 May 2019, <https://www.thewindowsclub.com/list-of-countries-that-have-banned-social-media-for-its-citizens>.
List of countries that banned Facebook, Twitter and YouTube 2019, FreeBrowsingLink, viewed 21 May 2019, <https://www.freebrowsinglink.com/countries-banned-social-media/>.
Russian social media 2019, TranslateMedia, viewed 14 June 2019, <https://www.translatemedia.com/translation-services/social-media/russian-social-media/?fbclid=IwAR2rJFpsYGgT-oD0GCXngauIlsztF1-8ri-SiJzmkkkmFjht2o_XaUMsYuY>.
Smith, B 2016, 'The Top 8 Russian social networks (and what makes them great)', MakeUseOf, 15th of August, viewed 14 June 2019, <https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-8-russian-social-networks-makes-great/>.
