Silicon Valley Giants Face a Test in Russia

The Russian authorities' first experiment with blocking a popular messenger application -- Telegram -- is not working out so far. The web censorship agency, Roskomnadzor, has blocked millions of internet addresses to beat Telegram into submission, but it's still widely available even without any bypass mechanisms, while numerous legitimate sites have experienced downtime.

The Russian social networks have exploded with sarcastic memes, but the merriment is likely misplaced. The experience will almost certainly push Russia toward the Great Chinese Firewall model, which will include reprisals on virtual private networks and Western cloud services. Roskomnadzor plans to block Facebook by the end of this year, and it will need to get better at it -- and to get more resources -- to succeed against such a formidable adversary. There's no indication that the Kremlin will deny the necessary funding.