October 24, Pozirk. Belarus blocked access to the Russian social network VKontakte (VK) on Friday at Committee for State Security request, according to the telecom watchdog BelGIE (BiełDIE).
Officials added the social network’s details to the list of restricted domain names without indicating the reason or duration for the blocking.
Last year, researchers from the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Sociology found that 22.2 percent of respondents in Belarus stated using VK.
The social network has often blocked “extremist” pages at Minsk’s request.
In 2023, VK silenced the Zerkalo news website, the Viasna Human Rights Center, the Mediazona news website, Belsat TV and other independent voices in its system.
On October 21 and 22, the Militant Black Metal Shop group and the Doloy Lukashenko! (Down with Łukašenka!) community on VK were recognized as “extremist content” by Belarusian court decisions.
