“To understand how the ban will work, it is enough to look at China, where Apple has just made a deplorable decision to remove most major VPN apps from the local version of its App Store. In doing so it has aided the online censorship efforts of the Chinese government and jeopardized the rights of countless internet users.”BackgroundThe law signed by President Putin late on Sunday 30 July bans technology which allows internet users to access online content prohibited in Russia, including VPNs and anonymizers. The same law gives Russia’s communications regulatory body, Roskomnadzor, additional censorship powers. After the law comes into force in November 2017, Roskomnadzor will be able to restrict access to anonymizing services. The law also creates an official register of online resources to which access is restricted in Russia.To understand how the ban will work, it is enough to look at China, where Apple has just made a deplorable decision to remove most major VPN apps from the local version of its App Store
Denis Krivosheev, Deputy Director for Europe and Central Asia at Amnesty International
