A courtroom 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 courtroom fined a 72-year-old pensioner for the act of “liking” two YouTube videos. The courtroom 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 prison prices.
On this newest case, the courtroom imposed a 30,000-ruble high-quality (€325) just because the pensioner pressed a button underneath content material deemed by authorities to be produced by so-called “overseas brokers” and demanding of official narratives.
This growth shouldn’t be a stand-alone incident. For years, Russian authorities have tightened their grip on on-line areas, blocking impartial information, throttling platforms, and criminalizing not solely the publication of dissenting views however even the non-public consumption of knowledge 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 setting has been described as among the many most managed on the planet, with companies creating “sovereign web” plans and deploying highly effective content-control methods 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 consider that this blatant management might solely be carried out by the likes of Russia or China.
Each click on, each search, and each like could be tracked, judged, and punished. A society that fines a pensioner for a digital gesture is actually saying that the state owns not simply territory and assets however thought itself. Opinions can now be weaponized. Most significantly, the web was as soon as a free medium of communication alternate, however now, it has develop into a device for censorship and management.
