Social Network Vkontakte Blocked in Belarus

Belarusian news sites, including Charter 97, are reporting that the Russian social network Vkontakte has been inaccessible on Wednesdays for a number of weeks. Vkontakte, along with Facebook and Twitter, is used by activists to plan and share information. The primary opposition movement within Belarus has referred to itself as a “Revolution through Social Networks,” and has styled itself after the opposition parties from the Arab Spring.

Vkontakte and other social networking tools have been used by protesters to organize “Silent Protests”, where flashmob-style groups organize over the Internet, and then materialize in public squares, silent other than clapping their hands in opposition to Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the president of Belarus. Usually, the protests are planned for Wednesday evenings.

Belarus has undergone significant turmoil recently, with economic problems that include 35% inflation and a falling GDP. Unrest due to economic problems has triggered government crackdowns, which, in turn, triggered more protests. Many protesters have been arrested, including the head of a top human rights group. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and other countries in the region have denounced the Belarusian government’s behavior. Some arrests and prosecutions have even resulted directly from online postings.

As the Open Net Initiative reported in July, blocking websites is not the most subversive activity that the Belarusian government has attempted online.

The government and the state police (KGB) have also used more subversive tactics online. For example, the Twitter account of The Independent’s Moscow correspondent Shaun Walker (@shaunwalker7) was cloned while Walker was in Belarus covering the protests. Hackers used the cloned account (@shaunnwalker, now defunct) to broadcast propaganda, spewing false information to readers in Russian. Similarly, Radio Free Europe: Radio Liberty reported that the KGB detained the administrator of Vkontake and coerced him into revealing users’ passwords, which were then used by the police to gather information about the protests and the opposition.

Herdict has not recently received reports from Belarus about the accessibility of Vkontakte. We encourage anyone who might have contacts in the region to send along this link to the reporter.

About the Author: Kendra Albert

Kendra Albert is an instructional fellow at the Cyberlaw Clinic.