The struggle of the state with the freedom to receive information continues. As you know, even despite the fact that Putin’s press secretary Peskov admitted back in April that he had installed VPNs on his gadgets, the authorities are doing their best to limit the spread of these services, which allow them to bypass the blocking of various Internet resources. Most recently, Russia experienced difficulties connecting to the Proton VPN service, and then Roskomnadzor confirmed the blocking of this and other VPN services.
Now, in addition to blocking, the state is trying to influence in other ways, including purely propaganda. For example, materials appear in the media explaining to "unreasonable citizens" the terrible harm that these services can cause to children... More to come: social advertising against VPNs has already appeared in the Moscow metro. On it, villains in anonymous masks and with the inscription vpn either take out the wallet from the passenger, or put banned substances on him.
Thus, the authorities are trying to change public opinion regarding the "dangerous" service. Moreover, in parallel with this, a horror story is already circulating in parental chats, which explains that vpn is a very painful number (English: a very painful service). True, the horror story itself is not new, but since April of this year it has come into circulation again.
It should also be noted that this poster was seen so far in a single copy on one of the metro lines. Plus, it doesn't show the imprint, so it's not clear who posted it. The press service of the metro has not yet commented on this case to journalists.
Perhaps, in this way, the reaction of Muscovites to such means of propaganda is being studied.
In social networks, however, the poster is readily commented on:
- Is this some kind of attempt to instill an irrational fear of VPN? Because what exactly is happening is not clear at all.
- It seems to me that in this picture, a man with a VPN is trying to stop a woman grabbing a girl in a white blouse by the chest. Maybe it's a covert VPN advertisement?
- In my opinion, the girl is feeling her friend's chest, and the guard of some order with the VPN badge is trying to stop her.
- They look like cops or some subway workers who decided to rob the passengers.
- Advertising when all the creatives have already left.
- Eka news! Yandex, out, is watching me, even though I didn’t give him permission. Then he also scoffs, saying, how did you like it there, somewhere, where you were on Friday evening? And throws up a photo. Any application can climb anywhere. Though public services, even VPN. Moreover, I do not trust public services anymore.
- A dermatologist at the clinic told me that since February 24 she cannot read the Internet on specialized topics, all foreign medical resources are closed for Russians. I told her: what about vpn? - What do you! I can't! I have a military husband!
- My relatives already openly say that they are afraid to install VPN and do not trust him .