Ukraine Pushes to Unplug Russia from the Internet

[crickets]

5. It's essentially asking them to break the internet.

I understand why Ukraine is making the request, but is it really a good idea? What precedent will it set?

Link to tweet

Eamon Javers @EamonJavers
There is a vigorous debate about whether that's a good idea. Pro: Russia deserves the toughest sanctions that will most deeply affect its economy. Con: This could cut everyday Russians off from independent news about the war, and Balkanize the global Internet.
1:43 PM · Mar 1, 2022

It's a good thing that the internet works the way it's supposed to and isn't easy to disrupt. The problem isn't the internet itself, but what's on the internet. Way more pressure should be applied to media outlets and social media companies that aren't pushing back against if not outright blacklisting Russian bot farms and propaganda outlets.

Naive question: As for cyberattacks, what methods are there to block outgoing sabotage without blocking the Russian people from receiving news?

The Russian people are at the beginning of a long, painful economic slide from sanctions. Do they deserve to be completely isolated from the rest of the online world? They might feel written off and deserted by that, and rightly so. What might be the long term blowback?