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submitted 4 months ago by 0x815@feddit.de to c/technology@lemmy.world

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.”

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[-] NaibofTabr@infosec.pub 248 points 4 months ago

“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.

[-] MrSqueezles@lemm.ee 35 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] GreatDong3000@lemm.ee 38 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] verity_kindle@sh.itjust.works 33 points 4 months ago

Thanks for the reminder.

[-] willow@discuss.tchncs.de 26 points 4 months ago

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.

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[-] veniasilente@lemm.ee 17 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] Weslee@lemmy.world 11 points 4 months ago

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.

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[-] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 10 points 4 months ago

🙋‍♂️ I have a question.

My pitchfork is meant for Roskomnadzor, not Mozilla. Do I still have to put it away?

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[-] Cincinnatus@lemmy.today 88 points 4 months ago

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

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[-] Vitaly@feddit.uk 85 points 4 months ago

Since russia is a terrorist state I dont really understand why even communicate with them in the first place

[-] maxenmajs@lemmy.world 50 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] nadram@lemmy.world 33 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] englislanguage 22 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Once again, it's mostly about the money

Do you have evidence or is this pure speculation?

How and why should Mozilla get money from Russia? Isn't it more plausible if Russia were blackmailing Mozilla?

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[-] victorz@lemmy.world 38 points 4 months ago

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.

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[-] cheddar@programming.dev 62 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] Konstant@lemmy.world 29 points 4 months ago

I mean, I'm not ditching Firefox over this.

[-] nadram@lemmy.world 21 points 4 months ago

Well said and a good reminder to keep our loyalties / fanboyisms in check

[-] fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works 13 points 4 months ago

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).

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[-] kawa@reddeet.com 61 points 4 months ago

What the actual fuck Mozilla

[-] Aux@lemmy.world 13 points 4 months ago

Their choice is to either block access to a set of add-ons from Russia or to get their whole infrastructure blocked by Roskomnadzor.

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[-] Allero@lemmy.today 58 points 4 months ago

So what they're essentially said is that they're gonna follow the rules for now to not be insta-banned, but will consider how to act next given the time they have received.

Which is why it's important to tell Mozilla it really is a bad choice to follow Russian censors.

[-] nyan@lemmy.cafe 38 points 4 months ago

Disgusted (mostly at the Russian government), but not surprised. There was no good option for Mozilla to take with respect to this—it was either block these add-ons in Russia, or have the entire browser blocked in Russia, and I'm not sure which would do the most harm in the end.

[-] Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.works 17 points 4 months ago

I think k long game would have been to stick to their values and have it blocked in Russia. Would be good press for them and people in Russia frankly need to get more pissed off. Maybe this would help a little.

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[-] 299792458ms@lemmy.zip 36 points 4 months ago

That is really pathetic...

[-] 0Xero0@lemmy.world 36 points 4 months ago

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.

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[-] NegativeLookBehind@lemmy.world 33 points 4 months ago

Contributing to Russian oppression and fascist agenda.

[-] LodeMike@lemmy.today 28 points 4 months ago

Why? Do they have employees that live there?

[-] nightwatch_admin@feddit.nl 15 points 4 months ago

Probably, or employees’ families maybe?
“That’s a nice little nephew you got there, it would be a shame if something happened to him “.

[-] preasket@lemy.lol 27 points 4 months ago

Better than Firefox being blocked in Russia. Addons can be added from files anyway.

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[-] uis@lemm.ee 24 points 4 months ago

Wait, they complied to Roscomnadzor? This is so stupid. It's literal Big Brother.

Долбоёбы.

[-] uis@lemm.ee 13 points 4 months ago

“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.”

Wait. Are they first to comply?

[-] cm0002@lemmy.world 19 points 4 months ago

Wow, wtf Firefox? Not even Chrome is blocking some of the add-ons...

Guess enshittification is starting to creep into Firefox now too

[-] ArtVandelay@lemmy.world 25 points 4 months ago

Think about it, pretend you are the Mozilla CEO. You get a ~~request~~ demand from Putin that you block these addons, and you have two options. A) Make a stink and stick to your principles, of which Putin has none, and so you get Firefox banned in Russia altogether. Now, Russians who want to use it cannot, and are forced to use other browsers that Putin can control. or B) Comply with the request, knowing users can still load extensions from the side.

Only one of these two options leads to the possibility of Russians being able to use Firefox with these addons, and it's B.

Oh and fuck Putin, just because.

[-] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 17 points 4 months ago

people who were using these addons probably had them installed already, so it'll only affect new users

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[-] Ibaudia@lemmy.world 17 points 4 months ago

They can either lose the Russian market entirely or capitulate to this demand, I think it's pretty obvious what they're going to choose. Mozilla may be an NPO but it still needs revenue to survive.

[-] ikidd@lemmy.world 18 points 4 months ago

Besides, it's open source. Anyone can pull it down and compile it without the fuckery, or download a binary from another source, or use a package manager that presumably would have a normal version for that distro.

[-] Ibaudia@lemmy.world 14 points 4 months ago

Yeah, and you can install extensions even if they're not on Mozilla's addon store.

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[-] Nioxic@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 4 months ago

im not TOO surprised.

they're a non-profit company after all. they're not political activists etc.

that said, it hardly matters, because its open source.

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this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2024
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