On October 8, Roskomnadzor blocked the Discord voice messaging and video chat service, which was used by gamers. Why this happened, whether restrictions can be lifted and what analogues of this service exist now are found in the RB.RU material.
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What happened to Discord in Russia?
Over the past month, Discord in Russia has experienced several large-scale outages. Users complained of problems accessing the service on September 19 and 26, as well as on October 8, when more than 3,000 Russians reported problems.
On October 8, Roskomnadzor blocked Discord “due to violation of the requirements of Russian legislation.”
Messages continue to come in about issues with Discord after the crash on October 9. According to Downdetector, 52% of them are related to the operation of the mobile application. Users complain that the application does not open, does not start or “gives an error.”
Users from Russia actively comment on the restrictions: “You have no right to block Discord, it’s like letting us breathe”, “Please fix it”, “I can’t log in, I’ve been trying for two days.” Some are even trying to organize a flash mob with the hashtag “#freediscord.”
- Discord is an all-in-one platform that allows you to communicate via text messages, as well as voice and video calls. Suitable for studying and working, but especially popular with gamers.
- Using the service, you can create communication channels for a large number of users, share screen images, connect a console for server management, and conduct online game broadcasts.
- On October 8, State Duma Deputy Chairman Vladislav Davankov, citing data from Mediascope, reported that 25 to 40 million people in Russia use Discord.
- According to the founder of the analytical company Dsight, Arseniy Dabbakh, the service is little used in business. It was mainly used as a gaming messenger or video calling platform, and was also released for viewing and co-working in the gaming industry.
Why did Discord crash?
Roskomnadzor decided to block the service due to violations of legal requirements.
“Access to the Discord messenger is limited due to violation of the requirements of Russian legislation, the implementation of which is necessary to prevent the use of the messenger for terrorist and extremist purposes, the recruitment of citizens to commit them, the sale of drugs, in relation with the publication of illegal information,” RB.RU reported in the press service of Roskomnadzor.
RKN clarified that they sent many requests to Discord to remove banned content, but several of those materials remain unremoved.
“In addition, in 2023, the court imposed a fine of 6 million rubles on the company for not deleting illegal information; the messenger ignored the court decision,” the supervisory service explained.
On October 1, Roskomnadzor announced that it had demanded that Discord remove 947 materials containing calls for extremism, suicide, drugs, and other prohibited content. The same day, the FSB announced the arrest of nine teenagers who were preparing attacks through Discord.
According to Andrey Yarnykh, member of the board of directors of ROCIT, Discord refuses to take responsibility for anything that happens on its servers. The platform has rules, but users can create closed servers and no one except the administration can monitor them, notes the ROCIT Telegram channel. In most cases, the platform has no idea what is happening on its servers, the expert believes.
Founder of the analytical company Dsight Arseniy Dabbakh believes that the reasons for blocking Discord are similar to those for which Telegram “fought” in Russia. “This lockdown will not have a serious impact on the business as a whole, but the general trend here is negative,” the expert told RB.RU.
Director of the Association of Professional Users of Social Networks and Messengers Vladimir Zykov told RB.RU that Discord is formally blocked because it does not remove content that Roskomnadzor has complaints about, but this is “too simple an explanation.”
“In this sense, Discord is no better than other foreign popular resources, which also do not delete content at the request of Roskomnadzor, but are also not blocked. For example, Google does this. Perhaps the authorities do not consider the service to be important to players, which is unlikely since they did a lot of PR activities before blocking it. There must be some other reason, but it is not obvious,” Zykov believes.
Will Discord be unblocked?
Zykov of the Association of Professional Users adds that precisely because the reason for the restrictions against the messenger is not obvious, it is “hard to believe” that the resource will one day be unblocked in Russia.
I have already spoken out against the blockade. Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Vladislav Davankov. The deputy is preparing an appeal to the leadership of Roskomnadzor to ask them to reconsider their decision.
“It is necessary to be able to work with the Internet and not prohibit everything. Without competition we will never have analogues and we will become the country of the winning VPN,” said Davankov.
ROCIT’s Yarnykh urges users, for their own safety, to abandon Discord entirely and use home platforms. But Davankova believes that in terms of functionality, Discord cannot adequately replace either Yandex Telemost, or VK Messenger, or any other domestic product.
As RB.RU explains economist, former senior vice president of Otkritie Bank Konstantin TserazovSolving the Discord unblocking issue will not be easy.
“It is imperative to carry out a detailed coordination procedure with departments and ministries, as well as discuss such steps in advance with associations representing business interests: the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation, the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, as well as with industrial associations such as, for example, NAUFOR,” stated the specialist.
How to replace discord
Experts warn that it will not be possible to replace Discord in the gaming industry, but other users will be able to find analogues for themselves.
EdgeCenter CIO Sergey Lipov believes that the block could lead to the loss of communication channels, difficulties in organizing events, and the collapse of Discord communities, even among players. Platform blocking is detrimental to professional and educational groups that rely on stable communications to meet and share information.
The expert named, in his opinion, the best alternatives to Discord: “TeamSpeak, Mumble and Skype offer communication and collaboration functions.” Dsight’s Dabbah also suggests considering TeamSpeak and Mumble as replacements and mentions Hyperbeam.
Zykov adds that Discord can be replaced using messengers similar to this one: Revolt.Chat, guild, Element, Mumblecan also be used Telegramstarting a video conference, where there is a full voice chat and a similar function is available “VKontakte”.
At the same time, Zykov noted that Discord is an international service used by players from different countries, so it cannot be replaced when used in the gaming industry. Most likely, players will use options to bypass already known crashes, the expert believes.
At the same time, analogues are suitable for other users not associated with the gaming industry, the most understandable are Telegram and VKontakte.
According to Tserazov, former senior vice president of Otkritie Bank, one in six Discord users is from Russia, so those who are denied access will look for solutions to this problem and alternatives.
“That company in Russia, for which the use of Discord and other blocked resources is important, may decide to transfer part of its activities and relocate its employees, for example, to the Republic of Belarus (where the messenger continues to operate). Russia will face an outflow of personnel and this point must be taken into account when developing the regulation. If similar decisions are made in Belarus, then companies could look for an opportunity, for example, to work in other EAEU countries,” economist Tserazov did not rule out.
On October 8, RB.RU also compiled a list of services that can replace Discord.
Author:
Ekaterina Strukova
Source: RB

I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.