A court docket in Russia’s Arctic Murmansk area has fined a pensioner 30,000 rubles (€325) for “discrediting” the military by liking movies on YouTube. ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/c6qPg9vj9o
— Novaya Gazeta Europe (@novayagazeta_en) February 9, 2026
A Russian court docket fined a 72-year-old pensioner for the act of “liking” two YouTube videos. The court docket discovered the person responsible of discrediting the Russian authorities and supporting content material produced by a Ukrainian propagandist. Within the trendy age, social media utilization can result in legal expenses.
On this newest case, the court docket imposed a 30,000-ruble superb (€325) just because the pensioner pressed a button below content material deemed by authorities to be produced by so-called “international brokers” and significant of official narratives.
This growth isn’t a stand-alone incident. For years, Russian authorities have tightened their grip on on-line areas, blocking unbiased information, throttling platforms, and criminalizing not solely the publication of dissenting views however even the personal consumption of data seen as harmful by the state. The regulatory and legislative infrastructure now permits courts to deal with easy digital engagement as a punishable act, and to assign criminality to what in any open society could be protected speech. Russia’s web surroundings has been described as among the many most managed on the planet, with companies growing “sovereign web” plans and deploying highly effective content-control programs that monitor, filter, and take away materials on the state’s discretion.
Therefore, we’re witnessing governments try to repeal VPN entry. Web sites are demanding consumer ID for entry. Anonymity on the web doesn’t bode properly for presidency surveillance and management. The West needed to imagine that this blatant management may solely be carried out by the likes of Russia or China.
Each click on, each search, and each like might be tracked, judged, and punished. A society that fines a pensioner for a digital gesture is basically saying that the state owns not simply territory and sources however thought itself. Opinions can now be weaponized. Most significantly, the web was as soon as a free medium of communication trade, however now, it has develop into a software for censorship and management.
