Russian schools have begun holding lectures on the dangers of VPN services
A large-scale propaganda campaign has begun in educational institutions across Russia, aimed at discrediting methods for bypassing internet blocks.
During special classes, students are told about the fictitious “dangers” of VPN services in an attempt to limit their access to alternative sources of information.
Similar measures have been observed in many regions of Russia, where school administrations are posting identical reports about their activities on social media.
In particular, in the Vologda region, teachers convinced children that using free services allegedly automatically grants access to their personal data to third parties.
In other cities, the propagandists’ rhetoric proved even more aggressive and took on the characteristics of legal intimidation.
At one educational institution in Irkutsk, classes were held with telling titles: “VPNs Are Illegal. What Is and Isn’t Allowed on the Internet” and “Using a VPN Is an Aggravating Circumstance in the Commission of Crimes.”
Not only faculty members but also representatives of law enforcement agencies—the police and even the prison service—are involved in conducting these lectures.
This indicates an attempt by Russian authorities to criminalize common digital security and privacy tools in the eyes of young people.
DW journalists noted the centralized nature of this campaign, as schools in the Arkhangelsk and Vladimir regions are distributing identical texts.
“Many schools in different regions are posting identical messages about the dangers of VPNs,” the investigators note, pointing to the preparation of talking points from above.
The main goal of these lessons is to instill fear in teenagers regarding the use of services that allow them to access independent media and social networks blocked in Russia.
Amid total censorship, VPNs remain one of the few ways to get an objective picture of events in the world and within the country.
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Amid attempts to block hostile information resources in Russia, a massive service outage occurred again on April 6, affecting state services in particular.
A similar outage occurred in Russia on April 3; telecom experts directly linked it to the operation of equipment designed to block unwanted resources. Founder Pavel Durov stated that the Russian authorities’ attempts to restrict VPN operations led to a massive failure in the national payment system.
Russia ranked second-to-last in the global internet freedom index following increased censorship and blocking measures, including the blocking of the Telegram messaging app.
