Russia’s President Putin has signed amendments to an existing law that prohibit Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).
According to the Moscow Times, the amendments, which come into effect on November 1, will also require online messaging services to link users with their phone numbers and to block users engaged in the dissemination of “illegal information”.
Speaking last month about the amendments, Leonid Levin, head of the State Duma’s committee for information policy, said that only messenger operators, rather than users, would face fines.
He added that the purpose of the amendments was to block access to what he termed “unlawful content”.
Last month Bloomberg reported that China had ordered the country’s three telcos – China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom, all of which are state-owned – to block access to VPNs by February 2018.
