Mozilla, the maker of the popular web browser Firefox, said it received government demands to block add-ons that circumvent censorship.
The Mozilla Foundation, the entity behind the web browser Firefox, is blocking various censorship circumvention add-ons for its browser, including ones specifically to help those in Russia bypass state censorship. The add-ons were blocked at the request of Russia’s federal censorship agency, Roskomnadzor — the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media — according to a statement by Mozilla to The Intercept.
“Following recent regulatory changes in Russia, we received persistent requests from Roskomnadzor demanding that five add-ons be removed from the Mozilla add-on store,” a Mozilla spokesperson told The Intercept in response to a request for comment. “After careful consideration, we’ve temporarily restricted their availability within Russia. Recognizing the implications of these actions, we are closely evaluating our next steps while keeping in mind our local community.”
“It’s a kind of unpleasant surprise because we thought the values of this corporation were very clear in terms of access to information.”
Stanislav Shakirov, the chief technical officer of Roskomsvoboda, a Russian open internet group, said he hoped it was a rash decision by Mozilla that will be more carefully examined.
“It’s a kind of unpleasant surprise because we thought the values of this corporation were very clear in terms of access to information, and its policy was somewhat different,” Shakirov said. “And due to these values, it should not be so simple to comply with state censors and fulfill the requirements of laws that have little to do with common sense.”
Developers of digital tools designed to get around censorship began noticing recently that their Firefox add-ons were no longer available in Russia.
On June 8, the developer of Censor Tracker, an add-on for bypassing internet censorship restrictions in Russia and other former Soviet countries, made a post on the Mozilla Foundation’s discussion forums saying that their extension was unavailable to users in Russia.
The developer of another add-on, Runet Censorship Bypass, which is specifically designed to bypass Roskomnadzor censorship, posted in the thread that their extension was also blocked. The developer said they did not receive any notification from Mozilla regarding the block.
Two VPN add-ons, Planet VPN and FastProxy — the latter explicitly designed for Russian users to bypass Russian censorship — are also blocked. VPNs, or virtual private networks, are designed to obscure internet users’ locations by routing users’ traffic through servers in other countries.
The Intercept verified that all four add-ons are blocked in Russia. If the webpage for the add-on is accessed from a Russian IP address, the Mozilla add-on page displays a message: “The page you tried to access is not available in your region.” If the add-on is accessed with an IP address outside of Russia, the add-on page loads successfully.
Supervision of Communications
Roskomnadzor is responsible for “control and supervision in telecommunications, information technology, and mass communications,” according to the Russia’s federal censorship agency’s English-language page.
In March, the New York Times reported that Roskomnadzor was increasing its operations to restrict access to censorship circumvention technologies such as VPNs. In 2018, there were multiple user reports that Roskomnadzor had blocked access to the entire Firefox Add-on Store.
According to Mozilla’s Pledge for a Healthy Internet, the Mozilla Foundation is “committed to an internet that includes all the peoples of the earth — where a person’s demographic characteristics do not determine their online access, opportunities, or quality of experience.” Mozilla’s second principle in their manifesto says, “The internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.”
The Mozilla Foundation, which in tandem with its for-profit arm Mozilla Corporation releases Firefox, also operates its own VPN service, Mozilla VPN. However, it is only available in 33 countries, a list that doesn’t include Russia.
The same four censorship circumvention add-ons also appear to be available for other web browsers without being blocked by the browsers’ web stores. Censor Tracker, for instance, remains available for the Google Chrome web browser, and the Chrome Web Store page for the add-on works from Russian IP addresses. The same holds for Runet Censorship Bypass, VPN Planet, and FastProxy.
“In general, it’s hard to recall anyone else who has done something similar lately,” said Shakirov, the Russian open internet advocate. “For the last few months, Roskomnadzor (after the adoption of the law in Russia that prohibits the promotion of tools for bypassing blockings) has been sending such complaints about content to everyone.”
“Following recent regulatory changes in Russia, we received persistent requests from Roskomnadzor demanding that five add-ons be removed from the Mozilla add-on store,” a Mozilla spokesperson told The Intercept in response to a request for comment. “After careful consideration, we’ve temporarily restricted their availability within Russia. Recognizing the implications of these actions, we are closely evaluating our next steps while keeping in mind our local community.”
People are getting upset about this, but it only applies within the country where Roskomnadzor has authority, and it’s temporary pending further review.
Slow down your condemnations. Mozilla, as a law-abiding organization, must at least acknowledge the requests of a regulatory agency within its own country. Whether you agree with their requests or not, Roskomnadzor has governmental authority in this context within Russia.
Stop jumping to conclusions, actually read the article, and put the fucking pitchforks away.
Remember when China told Google to censor web search results and Google said, “No. How about we show those search results with notes that they were censored and why since the sites will be blocked anyway?”, and China was like, “You can’t show them at all.”, and Google said, “Fuck you. We’d rather lose access to the Chinese market than violate our principles.”, and instantly shut down any service in China that would require censorship or disclosing private data and closed all Chinese offices working on any of those technologies?
What a time we’re living in.
It is a good stand from google but…
In the end it was all censored, since google wasn’t even there anymore, and China was left with a huge market opportunity for their own internal companies to serve their internal market instead of a foreign company. The Chinese people ended up worse off, Google ended up worse off, Chinese censorship won, Chinese tech companies won.
So still sucks either way. With firefox not being banned Russians can still load up the extensions, just have to get them from other sources.
LOL. It’s quite easy to sideload Firefox add-ons and I’m pretty sure these add-ons are already available elsewhere, through IPFS, Tor, or even a Telegram bot.
Thanks for the reminder.
🙋♂️ I have a question.
My pitchfork is meant for Roskomnadzor, not Mozilla. Do I still have to put it away?
People are getting upset about this, but it only applies within the country where Roskomnadzor has authority, and it’s temporary pending further review.
Which means that now, for example, Republicans can file to have any extension that “provides or facilitates woke content”. To put forth one (1) such case.
Idiot laws are idiot and must be fought at every point, in particular if you have more power than one (1) mere citizen. What Mozilla is doing is just announcing to the world they’re open to spreading their legs before the MAGAs.
Mozilla, as a law-abiding organization, must at least acknowledge the requests of a regulatory agency within its own country.
Insert Nick Fury “I recognize the council has made an ass-stupid decision”.
Whether you agree with their requests or not, Roskomnadzor has governmental authority in this context within Russia.
Also the fact they didn’t tell anyone until people started asking questions… This isn’t a “good faith, temporary” action. It’s a “let’s hope no one notices us doing bad shit” action.
Mozilla, as a law-abiding organization, must at least acknowledge the requests of a regulatory agency within its own country.
TIL that Mozilla is a Russian company.
But seriously why the hell would Mozilla be obliged to acknowledge this request? Do they have offices in Russia?
But seriously why the hell would Mozilla be obliged to acknowledge this request? Do they have offices in Russia?
Roskomnadzor has regulatory authority in Russia. Roskomnadzor has the legal authority to regulate communications technology within Russia. They are completely within their rights to enforce this within Russia, regardless of what people living in other countries think about it, and organizations operating within Russia are legally bound to abide by the Russian government’s regulations within Russia, just as they are in every other country.
Sure, and they can regulate it by blocking access to Mozilla. That’d be within their authority.
That doesn’t mean Mozilla has to answer to them. Mozilla would be within their rights to ignore Roskomnador.
Whether they should is another matter but they don’t have to respond.
Do they have offices in Russia?
Are you implying that if my office isn’t in a certain country, that means my software doesn’t have to obey that country’s regulatory agencies?
I mean… yes? Generally laws only apply within the borders of their jurisdiction.
What, are the Russian police going to come to the US and arrest the CEO of Mozilla Corporation?
The laws of a country apply to the activity of a company that is operating within that country, regardless of what that company considers its home country.
operating within that country,
That’s kind of an important detail there… as far as I know Mozilla does not operate within Russia.
Do they distribute a Russian version of their software to Russian citizens?
Does it matter, unless there’s an agreement that says the US (or some other place where Mozilla actually operates) will enforce Russian law?
Better than Firefox being blocked in Russia. Addons can be added from files anyway.
And they can be renamed, so the authorities will need to play whack-a-mole.
Mozilla is making a mistake in my opinion, should’ve never started obeying terrorist Russia. I have a feeling that’s going to hurt them more than just getting their browser blocked in Russia. They should’ve stood up for their values instead of caving…just sayin
This is not equating one to another, but the US invasion of Iraq is how much less terrorist? And how much less terrorist is what some US allies do, like Turkey and Israel? And how much less terrorist is surveillance in western countries?
(Please don’t comment with “whataboutism”, there’s a reason this word is used only in politics, cause everywhere else it’s assumed rules should apply equally.)
Also escaping Russian censorship is becoming less valuable the way the global Web has become, TBH. Why escape a propaganda and stupidity ridden space for a vaster propaganda and stupidity ridden space?
That said, it sucks, I’ve just gotten used to such addons as in the title a few months ago instead of having a separate profile with Tor.
Where the fuck Iraq came from?
Why escape a propaganda and stupidity ridden space for a vaster propaganda and stupidity ridden space?
Same thought Yandex progrrammers. Now Yandex is biggest source of propaganda on the Internet.
Where the fuck Iraq came from?
From unprovoked invasions.
Same thought Yandex progrrammers. Now Yandex is biggest source of propaganda on the Internet.
Yandex just aggregates Russian media, which obviously conform. I don’t know what this was about, though, it’s incomprehensible.
Yandex just aggregates Russian media
Google just aggregates American media. Do you see mistake here? Even when talking about only Yandex News, first they blocked “unwanted organizations” that did have media license(like Novaya Gazeta), then they increased weight of TASS, and it ended in entire news is “Putin caught pencil”.
And this ignores main Yandex’ product - Yandex(the search engine). It bans all pages that contain both Pu and words “краб”(crab), “пиздабол”(liar), “плешивий”(bald), “бункерный дед”(bunker old man), “главный вор”(head thief) and “хуйло”(huilo, I don’t need to explain, georgians and ukrainians can do it better than me).
Since russia is a terrorist state I dont really understand why even communicate with them in the first place
This is an unpleasant dilemma. What is the other option? Stick to their principles and let Russia ban Firefox? It’s not ideal but people in Russia can still install add-ons from file.
With the same logic, nothing is stopping people to download firefox from alternative sources 🤷♂️ There would be losses in market share (in Russia) had they refused to play along, but now Mozilla spread it’s buttcheeks for governments to impose themselves. Once again, it’s mostly about the money.
It’s not that we want to communicate with the state of Russia, it is so citizens of Russia can see real and true information from the inside and out.
Doesn’t seem to help though
Couldn’t hurt. It’s about the principle of freedom.
History doesn’t really suggest that Russian people think much of that principle. They seem to enjoy living under strong men authoritarian rule.
History doesn’t really suggest that Russian people think much of that principle.
1917
It’s not about what they enjoy, it’s about what they deserve. People deserve the truth, whether they like it or not. That’s what I believe.
You would be right at home in Russia then
🤨 I think we’re not getting through to each other…
I see a lot of gentle replies. I wonder if they would have looked the same if the browser in question was Google Chrome. The issue is that you can’t win this game. They ask you one thing, then another, then another, until you either fully comply or stop cooperating, and they block you anyway. That’s a reputational hit for the company and its product, whose only competitive advantage was its reputation.
Well said and a good reminder to keep our loyalties / fanboyisms in check
Mozilla fanboy here, this feels like an absolute diversion from the mission. They should have at least notified the community and devs some how, delayed the best they could, and then ban them to prevent being censored too. They better fight it or at empower someone that can (both technical circumvention attempts and legal rectification).
I mean, I’m not ditching Firefox over this.
Dammit, Firefox! You was the chosen one! It was said that you would destroy the anti-privacy, not join them! You were to bring security to the internet, not leave it in neo-naZi’s propaganda.
They were never really the chosen ones, just the most well known GECKO browser.
Wow, wtf Firefox? Not even Chrome is blocking some of the add-ons…
Guess enshittification is starting to creep into Firefox now too
Did you read the article? No? Cmon. You should start doing that before drawing conclusions.
This is noted as a temporary block on the specific extensions ONLY within the country with regulatory power to ban Firefox. Russia.
Mozilla has stated this is temporary so they can have the breathing room to figure out how to navigate this. Since this goes against their principles.
It’s either Firefox is banned in Russia, or they do this. Which causes more harm? That’s a rough choice for them to need to make.
Mozilla is a for-profit company, “temporary” = “quiet permanent” especially coupled with the secrecy and attempts to keep things quiet.
Yea, no, this isn’t going to be “temporary”
This comment aged like milk given they had already lifted the ban.
Yes, and I’ve already made a comment admitting as such in the relevant thread…and in the week since I made that comment Mozilla is in another scandal
Your biggest mistake is trusting the word of a corporation.
If it was a good faith action why would they do it in secret, why not make a post about it and informing everyone before hand about the situation?
For me, all evidence points to them hoping no one would notice and “temporary” would roll over into permanently.
Your biggest mistake was automatically assuming anything in corporation says is a lie, and projecting that into me.
All that matters is the track record.
God I’m getting sick of that word.
I’m sick of the concept it represents.
Yeh they enshitified starting quite some time ago, and with only sub-3% market share lmao.
If you like GECKO based browsers like firefox then try out Waterfox or others.
