The exceptional case of "Yandex.Zen": the Russian truth should sound to the whole world

News about the termination of access to “Yandex.Zen" for users outside of Russia, fortunately, does not correspond to reality yet. This is evidenced by the foreign respondents of the RUSSTRAT Institute, surveyed on the afternoon of March 10.

If, however, Yandex, as previously reported by news agencies, opts for such a restriction, it will seriously affect the dissemination of the truth about world processes, including the events taking place in Ukraine.

But whatever the decision of the monopolist company registered in the Netherlands turns out to be, one thing is clear: Russia needs early import substitution in the Internet sphere. Only the appearance of many new alternative platforms, social networks and search engines on the Runet and the Internet can ensure the promotion of our soft power on the planet.

So banned or not?

Throughout the second half of March 9, the media gave contradictory reports about the decision of Yandex to limit the audience of Yandex.Zen”. RBC was the first to tell about this with reference to the official comment of Yandex. Then the news was confirmed by TASS and Interfax.

All three sources broadcast the same statement that from now on "Yandex.Zen" is available only to users from the Russian Federation, and they will see in the feed only those channels to which they are subscribed.

"In conditions of an increased volume of content and a significantly changing context, it is impossible to provide high-quality personalisation in other languages for users from foreign countries," Yandex said in a statement, according to leading Russian news agencies.

It looked like a further reduction in the audience of the platform after on March 4, against the background of the Ukrainian events and tougher penalties for fakes, Yandex.Zen was temporarily switched to a subscription format. At the same time, neither on the Yandex press releases page nor in the official Ya.Zen magazine have there been any messages about the next innovation.

Already on the evening of March 9, Rossiyskaya Gazeta gave a refutation of the loud news. It said the following:

"Starting today, Zen content will be available on the sites zen.yandex.ru and yandex.ru regardless of which country the user is located in."

As of noon on March 10, Yandex.Zen was still available in Australia, Armenia, Belarus, Great Britain, Greece, Israel, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Serbia, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Sweden and Estonia - residents of these countries reported on social networks. The only exception was Latvia, but this could have been caused by the policy of Riga itself. Thus, the initial news from RBC looks like either  yellow press, or an incorrect interpretation of Yandex's intentions.

Anyway, its real or hypothetical decision to limit the audience of its social network exclusively to Russian users would be a fundamentally wrong step. And we'll explain why.

The world needs the truth

The anti-Russian orgy that has engulfed the West and Ukraine today is aimed not only at the citizens of our country or the assets of our companies. Sanctions are only half the battle. The key blow was inflicted on Russian information channels through which residents of the near and far abroad could receive an alternative view of things.

Today, Western censorship has grown to unprecedented proportions. It bans our TV and radio channels, restricts access to websites, declares Moscow's statements as disinformation one after another, blocks any speakers who do not fit into the Russophobic trend. In the centre of Europe, criminal penalties have even been introduced for publicly supporting the special operation of the Russian Federation in Ukraine.

In Ukraine itself, the witch hunt has acquired all the features of a punitive operation and street raids. Sympathisers of peace with Russia are physically eliminated as "traitors" and "saboteurs", attempts to "grope for ties with Moscow" are declared treason. Millions of Ukrainians, who are under the terrible information oppression of Kiev, are forced to look at what is happening through the eyepieces of military propaganda. They believe the craziest tales about the "victory" of Ukrainian weapons and wild tales about how Russian soldiers eat children.

Meanwhile, information about the events in Ukraine can be gleaned not only from the daily reports of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation. Dozens and hundreds of ordinary residents of our country are also trying to convey to the world the truth about what is happening. Day and night, they spread fresh information from the front in their blogs, transmit the confessions of eyewitnesses, share photo and video evidence, expose fakes.

The most important sources of data today are the personal Telegram channels of Russian authors with hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Some of them are conducted by direct participants in the events in Donbass and Ukraine, including Russian military commanders. With limited access to Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, Pavel Durov's messenger has become almost the main channel for the dissemination of Russian information in the world.

But one Telegram is very little. Even together with Odnoklassniki and VKontakte, it cannot compete with the media power of Western media and social networks. Help from blogs on Yandex.Zen, with their multi-million audience, would definitely not hurt here.

Yandex's concerns about the possible spread of fakes, punishable by the laws of the Russian Federation, are understandable (I don't even want to think that the company deliberately wants to shut up our citizens). But the two-year example of the coronavirus, around which the most incredible rumours also proliferated, showed that social networks and their users have completely adapted to this.

We all need the truth today more than ever. Its friends and sympathisers of Russia in the West are waiting for it. It is as necessary as air for the residents of Ukraine. Millions of citizens of our country are looking for it, for whom there are few stingy lines of officialdom. Grains of truth sifted through lies bring the light of hope to the desperate, strengthen the resolve of the unbroken, heal the discouraged.

We hope that Yandex will make a reasonable decision and will not restrict access to information that hundreds of millions of people across the planet need so much. But whatever position this Internet giant takes, it is already clear: Russia cannot and will not depend on hostile manifestations of monopolism in the IT sphere. The creation of new mass sites in the Runet, from which the voice of Russian truth will finally sound at full power, is a matter of the very near future.

Elena Panina, Director of the RUSSTRAT Institute