- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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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This is the best summary I could come up with:
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.
Developers of digital tools designed to get around censorship began noticing recently that their Firefox add-ons were no longer available in Russia.
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.
“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.”
The original article contains 703 words, the summary contains 160 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I hope the devs can tweak a few minor things here and there while leaving the most useful functions alone, change the name, slap a new logo on it and be back in business.
But I know nothing about how the censorship and the add-ons to circumvent it work and odds are it won’t be that easy.
But I know nothing about how the censorship and the add-ons to circumvent it work and odds are it won’t be that easy.
Change of name should be enough for legal system.
Thank you for letting me know that :)
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.
I mean, I’m not ditching Firefox over this.
Well said and a good reminder to keep our loyalties / fanboyisms in check
I think this is the big takeaway for me as a Firefox user. I switched the over from chrome about a year ago and I’ve been enjoying/promoting Firefox since.
I’m not saying that I will stop doing that but we should definitely not be blind or unwilling to criticize Firefox just because we are big fans of the service.
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).
It’s a handful of addons (open source, available to be added via files) rather than the whole browser that are now available in Russia. Seems better to cut loss there and remain available as long as a workaround exists I’d think?
So is this what Mozilla meant when they announced a privacy push back in February
Since russia is a terrorist state I dont really understand why even communicate with them in the first place
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.
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…
History doesn’t really suggest that Russian people think much of that principle.
1917
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.
Agreed - rather give the people there the ability to install this themselves than have them try to block Firefox overall.
The problem is, Mozilla is not doing that. The ability install xpis is censored (oh the irony) in retail Firefox.
Is this all true for addons available from Mozilla’s add-on site?
PS: Mozilla had to limit installing addons because lots of companies installed malicious addons into browsers of their users, often without knowledge or informed consent of their users.
You keep posting that but it is wrong. Ignoring that disabling installation of unsigned extensions is not censoring, you can install signed extensions via file in every version of Firefox, not only the developer one.
Stupid artificial outrage
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.
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?
How and why should Mozilla get money from Russia?
I’m guessing via search engine defaults for that region
(I Don’t actually know if they have a monetary agreement with yandex)
You’re forgetting about security updates, which would also be blocked. It’s definitely more of a problem if the whole of Mozilla gets blocked than some plugins that have workarounds and alternatives.
Why? Do they have employees that live there?
Probably, or employees’ families maybe?
“That’s a nice little nephew you got there, it would be a shame if something happened to him “.
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.
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.
It has been since proton imo. only one person in my group is still on the base version of the fox, the rest of us have preferred forks.
Think about it, pretend you are the Mozilla CEO. You get a
requestdemand 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.
people who were using these addons probably had them installed already, so it’ll only affect new users
They chose to comply with the request and become one of the browsers Putin can control. Not sure how Mozilla gets credit for anything good here.
Firefox was pretty great in 2003 ;-)
I guess there isn’t a good path here. There never is when Russia is involved. I guess just less bad maybe, I dunno
When should an organisation stop complying with totalitarian governments? First they stop the extensions.
What if they request for Firefox to add site filters, or else?
What if China demands similar bans for extensions related to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet etc?
It can go on and on. Some baselines should not be negotiable.
They’ve added a temporary block while they decide what to do.
Not even Chrome is blocking some of the add-ons…
is that something you know for sure? or has Google quietly complied with similar requests, without making a statement like Mozilla has here?
It’s in the article
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.
Does the add-on work the same way in Chrome? Or does Google break it in a way similar to uBlock Origin with the WebExtensions v3 update?
God I’m getting sick of that word.
I’m sick of the concept it represents.
Yeah me too, but can we not discuss it in a more nuanced and useful way than just shoving this word into every single post on Lemmy?
If things would stop getting shittier, then yes. I’m not entirely sure that it applies here so I understand your annoyance, but you’re seeing “enshittification” everywhere because we’re seeing the practice of enshittification everywhere. I applaud it being called out. We shouldn’t be seeing higher prices for worse experiences, but that’s the current trend. If you’re tired of seeing the word, then it’d probably be a good idea to take a break from c/technology because I don’t think it’s stopping any time soon.
I think we see it so much because kids on the internet think it’s fun to say. It’s dismissive and stifles meaningful conversation.
I think it describes a phenomenon we’ve seen repeated over and over almost without variation. Every single internet service slowly gets shittier as they switch from investment to returning investment. Everything going back to MySpace and Yahoo Spaces went from awesome to abandoned as soon as they started trying to monetize the platform they built. It’s fair to have a word for that and observing the inevitability.
Does it do any good if it is inevitable? I don’t know. The Fediverse seems to be a direct reaction to it, and I’d like to see more.
I don’t disagree that the word should exist, I’m saying it’s become overused to the point of becoming meaningless. Take this entire thread, for instance. This is not enshittification - yet, here we are.
We’re not, though. The word “enshittification” was coined to describe a very specific kind of shittiness, not just a general “I don’t like this development.”
Now that the word is being used in the more general sense, though, we’ve lost a useful way of referring to just that very specific kind of shittiness. We already had plenty of ways to say “I don’t like this development” so this is a net loss for the descriptiveness of language.
Besides, this instance isn’t even enshittification anyway.
Enshittification is when a company makes the user experience worse to squeeze more money out of them. This is just government regulation.
Darlin’, English, like any language, evolves.
Still Mozzila Corporation seem to be trying to earn more money by staying in the Russian market.
If they get kicked out of the Russian market then those extensions wouldn’t be available there anyway.
That’s a stretch.
Not really, they’re a for profit company with very little market share and as a result very little wiggle room to, say, be banned from an entire market region
They’re protecting profits over people like so many other companies do. Mozilla Firefox is no savior, they’ll protect their profits just like any other.
Protecting profits isn’t the same as trying to squeeze more profits. If companies were enacting bad policy out of legitimate concern for their business (as is the case here), it wouldn’t necessarily be an issue.
How else would you explain Mozilla’s decision?
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.
Are these only “just” pulled from the online catalog, or the browser itself blocks installation too from file?
If the prior, I don’t really like this action, but my browser won’t change because of it (for now?) and also Mozilla and Firefox served me well in the past almost 20 years since I use it, I trust these guys.
If the latter… that could be a different story.
Are these only “just” pulled from the online catalog, or the browser itself blocks installation too from file?
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.
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.
Contributing to Russian oppression and fascist agenda.
LOL
“switch to Firefox!” Yeah sure. What absolutely typical corporate cowards. Fuck Mozilla.
I’m not convinced this is “Fuck Mozilla” territory.
I’m genuinely curious why? I may have worded it strongly, but as a Russian, there are very few things as unethical to me as cooperation of any kind with the Russian government.
Would you be happier if they ignored the demands and possibly got Firefox banned in Russia? Because if so, it’s not that we disagree over our views of the Russian government. Probably neither do Mozilla.
We have different priorities. I want the average Russian to be easily able to install Firefox, even if it takes more work to load some extensions. You seem to want to cut off your nose to spite your face.
I’m genuinely curious why.
Would you be happier if they ignored the demands and possibly got Firefox banned in Russia?
Yes, having a web browser banned is absurd and impossible to do in practice, it would be largely inconsequential overall, before you even consider the thousands of forks of Firefox.
Taking down extensions makes them much much harder to get because they are relatively obscure and are usually hosted in one place only - on the extension store, unless you’re lucky and they have a binary on a GitHub.
I want the average Russian to be easily able to use Firefox, even if it takes more work to load some extensions.
I want the average Russian to be easily able to bypass censorship that blocks out truth in favor of misinformation of their government that gets people onboard with a war that’s killed tens of thousands.
What browser they use to do that I care much less about, not that they’ll be able to block Firefox or it’s thousands of forks from every page that hosts builds, installers or even OS ISOs with package on disc, but whatever one they have the extensions need to be available on the store - otherwise they can be extremely hard to find.
I think we simply disagree about the effect of taking down an extension vs “blocking” a browser may be.
I stand corrected, I see your argument about the comparative difficulty and effect of banning a browser vs an extension. The discoverability of the extension alone is a big point.
Not sure I agree with how you seemingly downplay the damage banning the browser could cause and fail to consider consider other ways people could organize to distribute extensions (even as you mention various ways to get Firefox, I’m a bit confused on this one). Others have already talked about this in the thread, so I won’t repeat it here.
With all that said, it seems we were both fools. Mozilla has returned the extensions already. It was neither about protecting Firefox in Russia, nor a case of “Fuck Mozilla.”
Hey 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.
I think it’s important to support the original Mozilla since they are the engine developers and need resources to make all other gecko-based browsers possible.
Currently though, it might make sense to make a switch, at least for now.
Communication from Roskomnadzor should be censored straight to/dev/null.
Wait, they complied to Roscomnadzor? This is so stupid. It’s literal Big Brother.
Долбоёбы.
“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?
