Anonymous exposes 364K files on Russia's censorship of the invasion

A Ukrainian hacking group associated with Anonymous released 364,000 files Thursday from Roskomnadzor, the Russian agency that monitors and censors information by the media. The documents were generated as late as Saturday, this past weekend.

The documents show that Moscow censored everything that referred to Russia's military action as an invasion,  and in fact, some Russian citizens were totally unaware an invasion of Ukraine took place.

"Roskomnadzor has given instructions about what can be said and ordered media outlets to delete stories that call Russia's invasion of Ukraine an Invasion," Anonymous said in a message posted online.

Russia President Vladimir Putin signed a new law on March 4th that makes it a crime to report anything that goes against the government's narrative over that what Russia did was not an invasion of Ukraine, it was a "special military operation." It's almost as if Russia is taking its cues from our Big Tech companies.

The foreign news outlets decided they had to protect their reporters, including the Compromised News Network (CNN), which stopped live broadcasts from Russia. The BBC also suspended the reporting of its Russia correspondent. When the law was put in place, that day Putin blocked its citizens from going on Facebook but in spite of that, many Russian citizens have been using virtual private networks to bypass the government's censoring of real news.

In another online development, Meta (formerly known as Facebook) says that it temporarily made allowances for some violent speech on its platform, such as "death to the Russian invaders" that would normally violate its rules. But it will still prohibit violent speech against Russian civilians and keep Donald Trump from accessing the platform.

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On Feb. 26, the Anonymous group announced on Twitter that it had successfully taken control of Russian streaming services and TV channels, replacing state-sponsored broadcasts with "the truth about what happens in Ukraine."

Anonymous also claimed credit for hacking Russia's Internet service providers as well as leaking content from a Belarusian weapons producer.

Anonymous warned in late February that it had declared a cyberwar against Russia for invading Ukraine and targeting civilian populations across the Eastern European nation.

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