After Russia put a block on access to Facebook and Twitter, internet searches for ways around it shot up
In the week since the Kremlin blocked Facebook, hundreds of thousands of Russians have sought to circumvent the ban using a virtual private network. A VPN creates an encrypted connection between your device and a remote server, which can be anywhere in the world, so in theory you can access sites blocked in your country.
Nikolay*, a Russian who now lives in the EU, says his friends back home bought a VPN in order to communicate with him and others amid fears that access to the outside world could become limited. “There is a lot of talk that people should get these VPNs as soon as possible,” says Nikolay.
