Stack Exchange Public Q&A access will not be restricted in Russia

Question

Like so many people around the world, we are watching the tragic and unlawful invasion of Ukraine unfold. Several of the discussions on Meta and in conversations with us have raised the question of whether we will block access to Stack Exchange sites from IPs associated with Russia. Unless compelled to do so by law, we do not have plans to do this. We want to briefly explain why.

It’s important to recognize that Geo-targeted restrictions on access to Stack Overflow are unlikely to effectively block bad actors from using our site, and are technically difficult to maintain. The users impacted would more likely be students and practitioners, who would suddenly find themselves removed from one of the world’s largest and most consistently high-quality reference sources. The people who would be most inconvenienced would not be policy makers or members of the military – those people have access to tools to evade our IP based blocks. IP ranges also vary regularly, so these blocks would need to be continuously policed, yielding imperfect results and creating a substantial risk of impacting everyday citizens the most.

Stack Exchange is founded on the principle that open information access helps keep the world safe, and we will continue to ensure our policies and stances support this.

In pursuit of keeping our platform safe, content on the site that is off-topic or malicious will be immediately closed by the community, as always. If you have concerns that any specific information hosted on Stack Overflow poses a material risk of harm, we urge you to send an email using the “Contact” link at the bottom of this page as soon as possible. If you have personal concerns about the way your knowledge contributions may be used, we would encourage you to make an individual decision about your willingness to contribute to Stack Overflow’s knowledge base, and we empathize with your uncertainty.

Finally, while we don’t have employees in Ukraine, there are many Ukrainians in our community and many Stack Overflow employees that have family members in Ukraine. We are thinking of them, and want to support the humanitarian organizations that are on the ground helping the civilians who are most impacted by this war. As such, we are making donations to Doctors Without Borders, the International Rescue Committee, and UNICEF. All of these global nonprofits are providing aid directly to Ukraine, and we have supported each of these organizations for years through Stack Gives Back.

Please consider this our official update on this topic. If the situation substantially changes, we will communicate proactively to reflect any updates as appropriate. We wish all people a swift return to freedom and safety.

Answer 1

Seeing how Russia plans to block Wikipedia because it calls Putin's "special operation" an invasion, I wouldn't underestimate the effect a banner with the Ukrainian flag and a clear message such as "Stop the war!" might have. If Russian government chooses to block SO as a result, it will be much more clear to the Russian SO users who their real enemy is. If the blocking comes as an SE decision, it will be just used by the Putin's propaganda as yet another proof of the US being the enemy to all Russians.

And, to reiterate my comment, blocking Russian-speaking SO communities based solely on the language would be even worse. This move would hit, among others, Russian-speaking Ukrainians, the very people it is intended to protect.

Answer 2

As per Sklivvz's suggestion, how about showing solidarity in the Stack Exchange and Stack Overflow logos, including for the Russian SO:

Other sites could join in too, e.g. Aviation:

Answer 3

As @TravisJ pointed out in a comment, Stack Exchange is owned by Prosus/Naspers, the same company that is the largest shareholder of VK, the biggest player on the Russian internet market.

Stack Exchange may want to address whether this has influenced their decision to not condemn Russia or show support for Ukraine in any way that is visible to people who visit the site.

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UPDATE:

Prosus has announced on March 7th that it is selling its share in VK, after VK's CEO Vladimir Kiriyenko was placed on the sanctions list. Naspers still owns Avito, Russia's largest online marketplace, valued at $6 billion before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Prosus and Naspers are twin companies with a "cross-ownership" structure, both run by the same people.)

(Thanks to αλεχολυτ for providing a link to this information.)

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RE: COMMENTS

Owning Avito and 27% of VK is not a tenuous link to someone who knows someone who knows someone, but a huge business interest. Asking whether this has influenced Stack Exchange's decision-making is not a "conspiracy theory", but a request for clarification.

(I'm replying here because my comments keep getting deleted.)

Answer 4

As such, we are making donations to Doctors Without Borders, the International Rescue Committee, and UNICEF. All of these global nonprofits are providing aid directly to Ukraine, and we have supported each of these organizations for years through Stack Gives Back.

While I hope that the war won't last that long, could we have charities specifically and directly helping Ukraine included in this year's Stack Overflow Gives back, especially if they're in a period of rebuilding?

Considering their sheer grit in the face of overwhelming odds, I can't imagine there's too many not moved by their plight.

Answer 5

A simple solution would be to have a pro-Ukrainian statement in an interstitial appear to Russian IPs. This would be relatively simple to implement and maintain and it would feel—if properly worded—like an encouragement for those Russians that do not support the war and a warning for those that unfortunately do.

We have had a logo change to support gay marriage, why not a similar action to make Ukrainians feel our support and encourage Russians to take responsibility for their country's actions?

Answer 6

Stack Exchange is to be commended on its position which is absolutely right in principle, though perhaps not right in practice, I greatly fear.

Thoughts and best wishes to all the Russians who Putin has, so callously, thrown under the bus in his imperialistic madness.

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My thoughts in comments elsewhere on this page: (Reprinted below after a request from @Vickel)

The stance is right in principle but wrong in practice. I have every sympathy with Russians, but the world needs to be doing everything within its power to make every facet of normal life in Russia impossible - and make it clear that normal service will not resume until the people of Russia successfully depose their insane president. For as long as he remains in power, Ukrainians will continue to lose their lives. For his part Putin gambles that life for most Russian citizens will continue as normally as possible; that he may continue his invasion with impunity. We do well to call his bluff.

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My great fear is that - and I fully accept what a moral dilemma this is - unless Russians in Russia have their professional lives disrupted beyond recognition they will not be inclined to speak out against Putin, who, not least, is not an easy person to speak out against. As long as the Russian people have a choice to continue their professional lives on an broadly normal basis, they will. And Putin will continue to act abroad - destroying Ukrainian cities, murdering Ukrainian civilians - with impunity. The invasion of Ukraine is not the fault of Russians. But it is their responsibility.

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A non-exhaustive list of the companies and organisations withdrawing services from the Russian Federation:

• Accenture has discontinued all its Russian business (See: Wikipedia)

• Adidas has suspended its partnership with the Russian Football Union (See: The Independent)

• Apple has stopped selling all products in Russia (See: Wikipedia)

• Apple’s Maps and Weather apps have resumed showing Crimea as part of Ukraine in all regions outside Russia (See: TechCrunch)

• airBaltic has left the Russian market (See: Wikipedia)

• Airbnb has suspended all operations in Russia and Belarus (See: Wikipedia)

• Airbus has suspended support for Russian airlines, and suspended services provided by the Airbus Engineering Centre in Russia (See: Wikipedia)

• Bloober Team has pulled sales of their games in Russia and Belarus (See: NicheGamer)

• Boeing has suspended support for Russian airlines (See: Wikipedia)

• Booking.com has suspended all operations in Russia and travel services in Belarus (See: Wikipedia)

• BP and Equinor have announced they are pulling back from Russian developments. Shell has paused its support of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project (See: Wikipedia)

• Canada Goose has stopped all sales in Russia (See: The Independent)

• CD Projekt has halted all sales of its games in Russia and Belarus (See: CNBC)

• Centrica has announced it will exit gas supply agreements with Russia (See: Wikipedia)

• The Church of England announced on 25 February that it will sell £20m in Russian holdings and has banned any further investment in Russia (See: Wikipedia)

• Cisco has suspended all deliveries to Russia and Belarus (See: Wikipedia)

• Deloitte has suspended all deliveries to Russia (See: Reuters)

• Delta Air Lines has suspended its code sharing partnership with Russian airliner Aeroflot (See: Wikipedia)

• DuckDuckGo has paused its partnership with Yandex Search (See: Wikipedia)

• Electronic Arts has halted all sales in Russia and Belarus (See: PC Gamer)

• Embraer has announced the halting of supply of parts and aircraft to Russia (See: Wikipedia)

• Epic Games has suspended sales in Russia (See: Eurogamer)

• Ericsson has suspended all deliveries to Russia (See: Wikipedia)

• The European Commission has suspended all payments to Russian institutions involved in EU-funded research projects on 2 March (See: Wikipedia)

• The European Union, Norway, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States have closed their airspace to all Russian airlines and Russian-registered private jets (See: Wikipedia)

• The European Space Agency (ESA) has delayed ExoMars, a joint Europe-Russian mission to send a rover to Mars (See: Wikipedia)

• Eurovision has banned Russia from entering its annual competition this year (See: The Independent)

• ExxonMobil has cut business ties with Russia and announced that they will not be investing in new developments in the country (See: Wikipedia)

• FedEx and UPS have announced that they would halt shipments to Russia and Ukraine (See: Wikipedia)

• FIFA, football’s global governing body, has announced that it has suspended all Russian teams (See: Washington Post)

• The carmaker Ford has suspended its commercial van joint venture in Russia “until further notice” (See: The Guardian)

• General Motors, Jaguar Land Rover and Renault have all stopped sales and operations in Russia (See: The Guardian)

• The German Research Foundation has suspended all scientific collaboration with Russia on 2 March, including the sharing of data, samples, research and equipment (See: Wikipedia)

• GoDaddy has stopped supporting new registrations for the .ru extension (See: Wikipedia)

• Google has suspended its ad business in Russia (See: Wikipedia)

• Google Pay, Apple Pay and Samsung Pay no longer work in Russia due to sanctions against numerous Russian banks (See: Wikipedia)

• Google Play and the App Store have both banned the RT and Sputnik apps (See: TechCrunch)

• H&M has stopped all sales in Russia and will keep its stores closed (See: Washington Post)

• IKEA will stop production in Russia, close down its stores in the country and stop exporting goods to and from there (See: Washington Post)

• The International Automobile Federation has cancelled the Russian Formula 1 Grand Prix in September (See: Washington Post)

• The International Cat Federation has banned Russian cats from entering any of its international competitions (See: Washington Post)

• The International Chess Federation will no longer hold the 44th Chess Olympiad in Moscow (See: Washington Post)

• The International Ice Hockey Federation and the National Hockey League have disallowed Russian competitors (See: The Independent)

• The International Paralympic Committee has banned Russian and Belarusian from competing at the Beijing Paralympic Games (See: Washington Post)

• The International Skating Union has banned athletes from Russia or Belarus from participating in events until further notice (See: The Independent)

• The Journal of Molecular Structure has stopped considering manuscripts submitted by scientists at Russian institutions (See: Wikipedia)

• Legal & General and Abrdn have sold all their Russian stocks and bonds (See: Wikipedia)

• Lego has suspended deliveries of products to 81 Russian stores (See: The Independent)

• Louis Tomlinson is among the solo artists who have removed Moscow from their world tours, along with artists Yungblud and Nick Cave (See: The Independent)

• Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd and Ocean Network Express have halted all container shipping to Russia, except for basic food products, medicine and humanitarian aid (See: Wikipedia)

• Manchester United football team has ended a commercial partnership with Russian state airline Aeroflot (See: Philadelphia Inquirer)

• Mango has closed its stores in Russia as well as its sales website and stopping the delivery of goods in the country (See: Washington Post)

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has ended its relationship with the Skolkovo Foundation on 25 February (See: Wikipedia)

• Mastercard, Visa and American Express have blocked transactions linked to multiple Russian institutions on 1 March. (See: Wikipedia)

• The Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics has switched off the eROSITA black hole telescope aboard the Russian Spektr-RG satellite on February 26 (See: Wikipedia)

• The Mercedes-Benz Group will stop exporting its vehicles to Russia and stop producing them locally (See: Washington Post)

• Microsoft has suspended new sales of its products and services in Russia (See: Wikipedia)

• Microsoft Windows App Store has banned the RT app (See: TechCrunch)

• Minecraft removed from the Google Play and Apple App Store in Russia by developer Mojang (See: Indian Express)

• Namecheap has terminated its service to all Russian customers, allowing exceptions for "all anti-regime media, protest resources, and any type of websites that are helping to end this war and regime" (See: Wikipedia)

• Nintendo has suspended eShop sales in Russia (See: GameRant)

• Nvidia has suspended all Russian-facing business activities (See: Tom's Hardware)

• Space agency NASA is exploring ways to keep the International Space Station in orbit without Russia (See: Wikipedia)

• Netflix will no longer air any Russian channels on its platform in Russia (See: Washington Post)

• Nike, Asos and Boohoo will no longer sell their products in Russia (See: Washington Post)

• Oracle has suspended all operations in Russia (See: Wikipedia)

• Panasonic has suspended shipments and ended operations in Russia (See: Wikipedia)

• PayPal has shut down its services in Russia on 5 March (See: Wikipedia)

• The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board has directed the Fine Wine & Good Spirits stores and its website to stop buying and selling Russian-sourced products (See: Philadelphia Inquirer)

• Rakuten has removed Russian ads from its messaging app Viber (See: Wikipedia)

• Reddit has prohibited links to Russian state media and rejected any advertisement from any Russian-based entity, government or private (See: Wikipedia)

• Rockstar Games and parent company Take-Two Interactive have suspended games, merchandise and other content on sale in Russia and Belarus (See: Rockstar Intel)

• Sabre Corporation has terminated its booking agreement with Aeroflot (See: Wikipedia)

• Sainsbury's supermarket has relabelled its Chicken Kiev as Chicken Kyiv (See: The Guardian)

• Samsung has suspended shipments to Russia (See: Wikipedia)

• German football team Schalke has ended a longtime commercial sponsorship deal with Gazprom (See: Philadelphia Inquirer)

• Snapchat has stopped running ads and halts ad sales in Belarus and Russia (See: Wikipedia)

• Spotify has closed its office in Russia indefinitely (See: TechCrunch)

• The Killers, Green Day, Bring Me to the Horizon and Franz Ferdinand have all withdrawn from planned live events in Moscow and St Petersburg (See: The Independent)

• TikTok said Russian users of its popular social media app would no longer be able to post new videos or livestreams and they also wouldn’t be able to see videos shared from elsewhere in the world

• UEFA has ended a longtime commercial sponsorship deal with Gazprom, the Russian state-owned oil company and has moved the Champions League final on May 28th from St. Petersburg to Paris (See: Philadelphia Inquirer)

• The University of Colorado announced on March 3rd that it will liquidate its investment in publicly traded Russian companies and mutual funds with holdings in Russia (See: Wikipedia)

• The Volkswagen Group will no longer export its cars to Russia and has halted production at its Russian plants in Kaluga and Nizhny Novgorod (See: Washington Post)

• The Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures have cancelled the upcoming releases of their films in Russia, including “The Batman” and “Turning Red” (See: Washington Post)

• Wetherspoons has stopped selling bottles of Baltika Lager (See: Daily Record)

• The World Bank announced it had stopped all activities in Russia and Belarus as of March 2nd (See: Wikipedia)

• YouTube has banned Russian state media outlets in the EU and UK (See: TechCrunch)

Answer 7

The people who would be most inconvenienced would not be policy makers or members of the military

Namecheap has a different reasoning:

Unfortunately, due to the Russian regime's war crimes and human rights violations in Ukraine, we will no longer be providing services to users registered in Russia. While we sympathize that this war may not affect your own views or opinion on the matter, the fact is, your authoritarian government is committing human rights abuses and engaging in war crimes so this is a policy decision we have made and will stand by.

The reasoning of Namecheap is that the people should be exposed. They could join the opposition and join strike. They can have an impact too.

The Namecheap's CEO continues:

[They] sympathize with people that are not pro regime but ultimately even those tax dollars they may generate go to the regime.[...] People that are getting angry need to point that at the cause, their own government.

source

Note that I don't share my own opinion on the matter, but I think this stance should be considered (even if it isn't adopted).

Answer 8

The point here is under what circumstances should SE take a PoV.

Let's say we ban Russian users this time.

On a purely hypothetical context, what if the following situations happen:

• India uses military forces to "solve" the disputed border problem with its neighbors.
• China uses military forces to do the same
• NATO invades Belarus or any other pro-Russian country (Hey, it may happen! We didn't think Russia would invade Ukraine before, so everything is possible now)
• The US bombs yet another Middle East / North Africa country (Libya, Iran, etc.) .

From the answers above we can say that the community has a red line drawn somewhere. Above it action should be taken, below it not.

The problem then resolves to

• Who gets to draw that red line?
• Why?

I am Chinese myself, which may trigger sinophobic people here but let's set that aside.

Though I would not hesitate to provide humanitarian aids for Ukrainian civilians, I do not feel that sympathetic for its government. That's my view. It is by no means majority, but it should be taken into account. If the situation is the other way around and suddenly bombs are raining on Moscow, I would not hesitate to provide humanitarian aid for Russian civilians either.

So my opinion, SE, as a purely Q&A side, need not make political stand here. Or we'd run into trouble if any one of the hypothetical situations occur.

On the other hand, a handful of SEs can put banners on them though, such as Politics SE, etc. They are, to their roots, deeply related to politics after all.

Answer 9

Geo-targeted restrictions on access to Stack Overflow are unlikely to effectively block bad actors from using our site, and are technically difficult to maintain.

That's not the relevant argument. SO has not blocked access from the US when it decimated Libya, or bombed Syria then sorta-invaded to "take the oil" to quote President Trump; is not blocking access from Saudi Arabia as it bombs and starves out Yemen through a siege; did not block access from Russia when it invaded Georgia etc. It therefore makes no sense IMO to decide that this invasion merits a block. In fact, it is difficult to see any circumstances which would merit blocking access to SO from a state/country.

Answer 10

It would be good if the sites could add some pro-Ukraine banners and information. Russia may then decide to ban the sites itself making the idea of a geo-block moot, but if not, hopefully some people will have an extra piece of evidence that they are being lied to.

Answer 11

I carefully read this article, as well as all the answers and comments of the SO community on this topic.

I definitely express my gratitude to this community for a sober decision. Now the situation in Ukraine is being discussed everywhere, it's terrible, these actions cannot be justified, it's true.

There may be errors in this message, because English is not my native language, but I hope I can convey my thoughts clearly enough.

For people who support this political decision on the part of Russia - Imposed sanctions, and even more so the restriction of SO - is not a problem, they are ready to live without a roof over their heads, and still continue to support what is happening. It seems to me that it is almost impossible to change the views of such people.

But what about those people who oppose such a decision? What about those people who are trying to do something?

Maybe they don't write about it in the Western media, I want to try to tell a little about what is happening with who are in Russia and oppose it.

Recently, a new law was adopted in the Russian Federation, now the dissemination of false information about the military actions of the Russian Federation will be punished by criminal liability (3 years in prison) or a huge fine. As I understand it, false information is information not from Russian official sources. At the moment, the authorities of the Russian Federation are discussing a law on conscription for military service (to the Donbass) of people who participate in rallies, they write about this in the news of the Russian Federation.

Some Russians are ready to burn their houses in order to stop fire houses in Ukraine ( This is a literal translation from Russian. Means that Ready to sacrifice themselves to stop the suffering of others ). And even despite the fact that almost no one will support them, even in their own country.

The decisions of companies to stop their activities in the territory of the Russian Federation aggravated the situation only for those people who are just against everything that is happening, and those who support the situation are once again happy about this, discussing only import substitution and support for their production. I cannot say that such a decision is correct, but I am ready to admit that it may make sense in the minds of those who made it.

For several years I was preparing to legally move to another country in order to develop my skills in the IT field and improve the quality of life for my family, now it's all gone to the furnace. It's sad to realize this. This is also my fault, maybe I did not work enough to earn at least a year of living in another country, but still, I, and millions of others who wanted to live in another country for many reasons, almost completely lost this opportunity.

I studied development for iOS for several years, developed and worked in this direction, and Apple announced its withdrawal from the Russian market. Ironic. I was wiping sweat on my forehead and watching GitHub, GitLab, StackOverflow, Microsoft decide if they would block access.

Therefore, I think the right decision is not to block the Russian participants. Many are discussing putting up a banner on the homepage in favor of a cessation of hostilities or as support for Ukraine, to be honest, there is nothing wrong with this, but I don’t think it will help those who have suffered

As for donations, I would like to give special thanks to the SO community for that. Of course, this will not return the lives of the dead, but this is the best thing that can be done, and it must be done! This is a wonderful solution.

Answer 12

The badminton federation, chess organization FIDE, neutral Switzerland and even the 500k citizen islands of Cabo Verde took a stand against the war.

And the biggest, worldwide community driven software developer platform is issuing a statement that it is too hard and useless...

As a person living in Poland, and supporting Stack Overflow almost since the beginning 13 years ago, being in 2% of SO users, I can not express how heartbroken and disappointed I am, reading it knowing the tragedy of Ukrainians from the first hand. It is not fake news. It is not complicated. Regular people are killed in their homes in front yards. People like me and you.

We all as developers from around the world should know better, not being ignorant. We all cooperate, without any discrimination, making the world a better place. Currently, the war brings tragedy and pain to people, shredding the work we all put into the peaceful cooperation.

The whole world is doing what they can.

As a SO user and contributor, I expect the Stack Overflow group to take a stand against the war!

March 6, 2022 update: Putin is preparing to disconnect Russian citizens from the internet. The time window to make the right decision seems to be closing soon...

March 24, 2022 Update: Stack Overflow didn't imply any consequences, neither did it join the informative campaign. It looks like Stack Overflow owners made the decision already.

Answer 13

All best wishes to ordinary people who had no wish to get caught up in these events, and a humble plea to those who may be close by:

Should you see an evil it is a duty upon you to stop it with your hands,
If you cannot then you should stop it by speaking out,
If you cannot then at the very least you should hate it with your heart.

May peace be upon you all.

Answer 14

Whatever the reason that this war was started and whatever the reason that this war is still going on, one important thing is never to forget that one injustice does not justify another injustice and that one wrong does not justify another wrong.

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Discrimination against and exclusion of ordinary normal Russian citizens, who have no influence on the decisions of those in power, will make them feel they have no one to turn to.

This may make them feel that their own regime is the only thing left to them.

This effect can strengthen this regime.

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I don't usually spend much time on fictional fantasy literature, but now I'm making an exception: The following words are loosely based on the words of the fictional Star Wars character Yoda. As that is a fictional character, I actually use the words of those who thought up Yoda's words. Those were/are real people who intended to reach real people with their real message through a piece of fiction:

I think not restricting access for anyone is a good thing:

Discrimination and exclusion lead to distrust. Distrust leads to fear. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Discrimination and exclusion are not means to unite humanity in good.

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In 1972, the Council of Europe adopted Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th Symphony theme as its anthem. In 1985, it was adopted by EU leaders as the official anthem of the European Union. The later version of Friedrich Schiller's ode "To Joy" often accompanies this melody as a song text. The later version of Friedrich Schiller's ode "To Joy" pays homage to the idea that all humans become brothers.

We all need to understand that all humans becoming brothers is sort of obsolete because we all already are sisters and brothers, and that whatever we do to another, we do to a sister or to a brother.¹

We are born as sisters and brothers. Our mechanisms of perception and awareness and consciousness, our thinking, our reference to reality are based on the same categories - e.g., categorization, conceptualization, space, time, implication, reality, fiction, the virtual.
Better than with all other forms of life, we humans can communicate with each other by conceiving objects of cognition as concepts and by representing these concepts in communication by means that affect the sense organs, e.g., by audible sound waves or by visible images or characters or, e.g., by tactile Braille. The sensory impressions are "reported" to the brain and interpreted and reach - in apperception-related processes - the awareness and thus the self of the communication participants.
A person can communicate with other people to reach the self of other people. A human being cannot reach the self of a tree or a fish in this way. All human beings are born as sisters and brothers.

In one of his lectures, the nuclear and quantum physicist Hans Peter Dürr mentioned that the orbitals of an atom extend over the entire universe and that therefore the orbitals of all atoms overlap and that in this sense the hearts of all living beings, built of atoms, are intertwined and connected.

Even those people who cheat and betray and lie and and wage war and bring suffering to others are sisters and brothers.

They are sisters and brothers who have lost their way. In a devastating and tragic way.

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They must be made to stop doing what they are doing and they must be prevented from doing it again. When intervening, the attitude is to be taken that one has when intervening because a sister/brother has lost perspective and is going down a reprehensible path.

One needs to be careful not to lump innocent people in with these people. Because otherwise one declares people to be a war party who do not want to be.

Declaring others belligerents at will and at one's own arbitrariness and without being authorized/entitled to do so by the state whose citizenship one has is, among other things, presumption against all the citizens of the state whose citizenship one has.

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The only good way wars can be reliably ended and prevented is by all mankind striving to give priority to respect for humans, individuals, fellow beings and life in general in the regulation of their affairs, and therefore to keep improving their sense of these aspects.

The Völuspá, one of the most important poems of the Nordic Middle Ages, is about Ragnarök. Ragnarök is a saga of the creation of the world and the end of the world, and the re-creation. The focus of this saga is on what is to come, the end of the world.

In this poem there is a verse "all evils get better"/"all ills grow better". This verse is not about martial, merciless elimination. This verse is about evil being defeated by causing it to change and to mend and to transform into something that is not evil.

Humanity faces a difficult and fearsome task that it must overcome for the sake of salvation of life.

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_{¹Those who have committed and are committing atrocities have done and are doing so to fellow human beings and thus to sisters and brothers. Every human being is responsible for her/his own actions and omissions according to the degree of insight into her/his own actions and omissions—the argument of being a recipient of orders or being a mere tool of those in power does not count when one has control of the trigger of the weapon oneself. Humans have conscience not to lay it down on command, but to listen to it in critical situations.
Regarding the keywords "insight" and "restricting access" - anyone who censors and/or restricts access and/or spreads false news restricts the possibilities for correct insight and thus also the possibility of assessing the extent to which one's actions are in line with the standards of those ethics for which one advocates.}

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The Great Dictator, starring Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard, 1940 - Ending Speech

Reinhard Mey, Johannes Wagner, Konstantin Wecker - Es ist an der Zeit
(Attempt of a translation into English language.)

Chris Simmance - If I Lose

Answer 15

Geo-targeted restrictions on access to Stack Overflow are unlikely to effectively block bad actors from using our site

This seems to largely be missing the point.

The idea is to go beyond the sanctions imposed by various governments to send a clear message that we won't just ignore atrocious actions, to punish Russia for its actions and to attempt to get Russia to change its decision (without creating a high risk of nuclear war).

Many sanctions will likely, first and foremost, affect the average Russians, who may not support the government. This is not really avoidable. But, aside from military action, that's also the only real way to punish a government for its actions.

So really it's a trade-off between avoiding collateral damage and just sitting by and letting other powerful countries commit whatever atrocious acts they want.

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Of course you may feel that avoiding the collateral damage is more important, and it's your right to hold that opinion.

I just felt it's important to point out why people are actually imposing such restrictions.

Answer 16

While I largely agree that the punitive step of blocking access to Russia would be ineffective against those most at fault, and really only cause collateral harm (let us not forget the many innocent Russians who are protesting against their government's actions), what proactive steps has Stack Overflow considered to draw attention to the conflict and denounce it?

DWB, IRC and UNICEF are great organizations that help the victims of all kinds of crises. As organizations, they are intentionally and courageously neutral (which opens many doors to them); but the Ukrainian crisis is not an unfortunate inevitability like an earthquake or drought. It would end immediately if Russia decided to end it. Supporting humanitarian organizations is a great first step (and I applaud SO for doing so), but it's also a neutral, milquetoast response to a conflict; it doesn't distinguish between aggressor and victim.

We know that unsavory characters have used Stack Overflow, and there is little we can do to stop them. If software developers working for the Russian military use the site to help them build tools of warfare, it would at least be cathartic to know they had to look at a banner, or logo, or something, calling for an end to the war. And maybe, just maybe, something that piques their conscience a bit (again) will cause them to rethink what they are doing (and maybe even sabotage their own equipment).

For example, changing the logo to mimic the colors of the Ukrainian flag, showing a discreet banner to state that Stack Overflow stands for the cause of peace, or just incorporating a peace symbol (☮) in the header, would be a more active show of solidarity against those that advocate for, or support the means of, human suffering.

Aiding victims doesn't mean much without also calling out their victimizers.

Answer 17

I understand that targeting IPs is both impractical and inefficient but a low tech solution could simply involve taking down https://ru.stackoverflow.com/.

Having said that I don't want that to happen because I make a clear distinction between the Russian regime and the Russian people who I believe only aspire to live in peace.

However it would be nice if that Stack Exchange community could display a token of solidarity on their main page.

Answer 18

Though I do understand the reasoning, as a Ukrainian citizen who is now divided with his family I feel betrayed. For years Stack Overflow helped me to solve my IT-related issues and I'm deeply grateful. I hope my tiny contribution was helpful for others as well. But now cyber war is in full swing and having this resource fully available for the enemy is a big mistake. It's like helping them to repair their tanks and rockets. But who knows what is more harmful nowadays: conventional weapons or cyber warfare. Guys, you are helping to kill my family members, my colleagues and friends.

Answer 19

Politics.SE and probably History.SE already contain information that is against new Russian laws, calling the invasion an invasion and the war a war. Although Stack Exchange does not contain a Russian language site focussing on politics, it is conceivable that the Russian censors will clamp down not only on Russian language sources (see the threat to block the Russian language Wikipedia), but perhaps also English language sources. This is speculative, but perhaps Russia will end up blocking Politics and perhaps History Stack Exchange for these reasons.

In this light, it's possible that the headline of the announcement promises a little too much. Stack Exchange will not block access in Russia, but considering the contents of Politics and History Stack Exchange, perhaps Russia will.

Answer 20

As such, we are making donations... is way too ambiguous.

If SE is neither showing solidarity (in any notable way beyond this post), nor withdrawing from the market, but instead they say they are donating money I do hope that this is an honest donation rather than "we were doing this already so we can just say that we do". Their previous donations are wonderful, but if they keep donating the same amount this does not help the current victims of the war, nor is it a substitute for other actions they could take.

How much is donated to each cause, and is this on top of what SE normally donates, yearly?

Answer 21

Many, many thanks for the financial humanitarian help.

I understand the arguments about the proposed restricted access to be easily circumvented and I also think there are currently quite a lot of sanctions present and Stack Overflow is not so significant either way, but let me shortly reiterate the logic of sanctions.

The Russian army is killing Ukrainians in the war which they started by invading Ukraine over one week ago and short of sending in other armed men, the only way to do something against it is to suppress the economy. Economic sanctions increase the price of a war and have direct and indirect impacts. But these sanctions will never be possible to be targeted and effective at the same time, Putin will always be shielded best from them and he will continue dining greatly. Sanctions will always be felt by everyone and that is even their aim to some extent.

Russian citizen not supporting Putin and the war will be collateral damage in the sanctions, as are all Ukrainians but the damage here is not comparable. The danger to the lives of Ukrainian citizens justifies the sanctions in my eyes.

Can we really shoot at each other but then also say, hey let's all collaborate on open information, because that "helps keep the world safe". What about open societies like the one of Ukraine (in comparison to Russia) that just get crushed. A temporary restriction of Stack Overflow in Russia could be seen as an attack on open information, but also as a plea for keeping societies open and free. What do you think is more important.

Nobody knows in the end how effective a restriction would be or how much the public opinion in Russia would be affected or how much collateral damage would be taken. Everyone has to decide for himself about that and compare with the company's decision.

The idea with pro-Ukrainian banners as mentioned in other answers won't happen. A meaningful banner would have to be at least as strong as "FXXX Putin" from the content, but then we probably could restrict access in Russia by ourselves as well. The company will not do that.

The thing that rather disappointed me is that the answer by Yevhen Nedashkivskiy got so many downvotes and ended up with a negative score. As far as I can tell, it looks like an authentic, reasonable opinion to me for someone being directly affected by a war. Let's me wonder how many Putin supporters might actually be present here. Maybe voting just isn't the right thing for every topic.

All in all, I think that in this Q&A a lot of consideration is shown for Russians that would be affected by possible restrictions and that is justified, but my mind is on the fate of Ukrainians.

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Update after three weeks of the war: The Russian army is currently kind of besieging major Ukrainian cities like Kharkiv, Kyiv and Mariupol and is shelling these cities accepting that many Civilians will die. The casualty count is increasing and millions of Ukrainians are fleeing. Many international enterprises have ceased activities in Russia. Tech companies like Apple or Microsoft have partly pulled out as well as digital services like Netflix, Twitter or Instagram (or have been blocked). Russia has enacted a law that forbids publishing information about the war that are not official information (and the official information overlaps only to a small extent with the truth). ~14 thousand protesters have been arrested in Russia.

My gut feeling is that spring 2022 will not be known in the future as the point where we defended open information, but rather as the point where StackOverflow may not have been doing all it can to take a stance for open societies and against wars.

I know the impact of a temporary closure of SO to Russia would have been only small, but also small things can add up to something significant. And even the banners that many here requested have not been implemented. Maybe more could have been done to end this war earlier. That's the question that people should be asking themselves in my opinion.

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Just as an example how different things can be, look at Coursera's response to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine

Coursera believes learning is the source of human progress and we are committed to ensuring learners everywhere have access to the highest quality education. However, we will not support the financial or reputational benefit of Russian instructors or institutions on Coursera while this tragedy is taking place, nor will we look to profit from doing business in the region amid this humanitarian crisis. As a result we are suspending all business in Russia.

Both, StackOverflow here as well as Coursera there argue from idealistic points of view, but arrive at rather orthogonal outcomes. And both are very similar in that they are dealing with offering educational resources.

Admittedly, stopping to do business with Russia as a whole is easier for Coursera because they offer paid services, but still even that could probably be circumvented somehow, so not a 100% efficient either.

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And six months later the war in Ukraine is still going on and humans are still dying every day in significant numbers. I know that SE is just a small platform but I cannot help the feeling that a more, stronger push to stop Russia right at the beginning in February including possible actions like excluding Russia from SE might have made a difference and ended this war earlier, saving lives in the end. As it looks it will likely go on for a long time. Even in Russia the consequences are felt more and more now. Ordinary Ukrainian or Russian citizens probably have other problems right now than accessing StackOverflow. That's why I think that a simple statement like "open information access helps keep the world safe" is flawed (not deep enough) in many ways. In Russia there is no open information, the world isn't safe and everyone has at least some responsibility for what happens somewhere else because we all could act differently if we wanted to.

Doesn't mean that I think a boycott of Russia by SE would have made a big difference (banners might have made a small but significant one I think) but that in general I think that the World didn't do enough to deter Russia from invading Ukraine or from continuing with the fighting. That's just my personal opinion. Everyone can simply for him/herself think what maybe could be done in order to avoid more killing. Going on with business as usual may not be the best solution in that regard.

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And now the war in Ukraine lasts already for 14 months and is still going at quite high intensity. I often wonder what would have happened if the world would have reacted stronger to this war in the first weeks/months than it did. If the pressure on Russia to stop invading Ukraine would have been stronger, if then maybe lots of lives could have been saved that were lost later in 2022 and in 2023. Nobody knows for sure, but instead it rather seems as if the war has become routine. Attention of people is elsewhere (AI is all the rage now). It's interesting to see how people only strongly react to sudden changes but not to accumulating disasters that much. It's a bit as if our memory is unfortunately not good enough to remember exactly how it was before the war and what the difference means. I feel sad about that and that not more can be done. Sure, over 1000 companies curtailed operations in Russia, which maybe they wouldn't have needed to do. And in Russia, the state is suppressing every dissent, one cannot say anything against the war, it's a bit like Soviet Union only without the ideology. In this light the sentence in this announcement: "Stack Exchange is founded on the principle that open information access helps keep the world safe." sounds still so hollow, oversimplified or outright wrong. If Stack Exchange would mean open information it would already be forbidden in Russia, instead it's just a free tool and in the end other stuff like weapons seems equally or more important for keeping the world safe.

Answer 22

There are many comments here saying that "Russian citizens should not be penalized when trying to do their job or their hobby simply because their leader is insane."

It's indeed a very reasonable point of view. But let me offer a different one:

Penalizing ordinary people in Russia could make them realize that the situation is really critical (I mean REALLY CRITICAL) and their 'democratically' elected government is every day committing brutal war crimes in Ukraine. As a nation, they are responsible for this. It should make them loudly express their disagreement with this unlawful war. Putin must realize that people in Russia know what he is doing - and that they are strongly against it. It seems that nothing else can stop him. Look how hard he is trying to prevent this!

Personally, I see both of these points of view relevant. Yes, the first one doesn't impact ordinary people, it helps spread the information to intelligent people who can further work with it. But on the other hand, pressure and discomfort usually helps people to really act, rather than talk.

Hard choice, indeed.

P.S. It's quite possible that Putin will cut the internet soon, making the choice himself. Degrading Russia to North Korea level.

Answer 23

TLDR: Whatever you're going to do, do it quick! As a community we can and should be actively engaged online as well as offline.

Given the words of Martin Niemöller:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

It makes sense to take some action and take it soon. Taking too long to respond can put this site's capabilities or sites like it in jeopardy.

It can be said that any additional signaling (turning off SE sites for everyone, a stylized logo, direct message, etc.) is probably of less immediate effect than the donation that’s already been offered. Even with that view in mind, doing both offers value to the dialogue. It both communicates that not only does the SE community support Ukraine in its current plight, but that we need people to be active in this online forum and also involved in their offline forums too: because the offline forum is the one that makes this and other online exchanges possible.

Answer 24

Dreadful decision.

You cannot politically influence the awful Putin regime if you do not punish the grassroots that support him and it. If you expect or want to attack that evil regime you must attack the support base.

You cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs.

It is worse.

You are choosing to continue to support a people who back a regime that has started an unprovoked invasion and is actively using any and all resources available to it to wipe out cities for the "crime" of not being willing to let themselves be forced into domination by a dictatorial regime.

If even one sentence of one answer on this site helped one Russian citizen who supports this vile regime shave a second of their work, then it is more than they deserve.

You are engaged in "business as usual" with a country than has chosen the same path as Nazi Germany. And like Nazi Germany you are fools if you think this regime will stop at one. What of the Baltic states? What of former Soviet countries now free? Will you stand by and wait and see and continue business as usual?

Geo-targeted restrictions on access to Stack Overflow are unlikely to effectively block bad actors from using our site, and are technically difficult to maintain.

It would an inconvenience so you won't bother at all.

Pathetic.

The users impacted would more likely be students and practitioners, who would suddenly find themselves removed from one of the world’s largest and most consistently high-quality reference sources.

You mean it definitely would inconvenience and annoy the very people who underpin that evil regime and it's fascism?

That's a reason to do it. It is the exact reason why you must block them.

The people who would be most inconvenienced would not be policy makers or members of the military – those people have access to tools to evade our IP based blocks. IP ranges also vary regularly, so these blocks would need to be continuously policed, yielding imperfect results and creating a substantial risk of impacting everyday citizens the most.

You mean it would impact the people whose sons are now shelling Ukrainian cities and killing Ukrainian men, women and children?

So, again, a reason to block them, not to continue helping them.

Answer 25

The users impacted would more likely be students and practitioners, who would suddenly find themselves removed from one of the world’s largest and most consistently high-quality reference sources.

The users impacted are citizens of the offending country. Period. The only reason that any country can invade another is because the citizens of the offending nation allow it to happen. Leaders of nations or armies only have power because the people give them that power.

In this case it is even simpler than that. Stack Exchange is headquartered in New York, it is an American company under the jurisdiction of the Unites States. As such it must be aligned with the direction set by the federal government...

Summary: Sanctions against Russian persons may include blocking of assets subject to U.S. jurisdiction; limits on access to the U.S. financial system, including limiting or prohibiting transactions involving U.S. individuals and businesses; and denial of entry into the United States. The United States also tightly controls exports to Russia’s energy and defense sectors.

Information is an asset. SE provides information. And the part that SE seems to be glossing over is that many of the practitioners would include people in the service of government or an oligarch.

Answer 26

All the content here on SE is created by the users. The users make this community thrive. In my opinion SE should ask the users if they want their collective knowledge to be available in Russia. It should not be a decision taken by the SE management.

Please let us vote and follow the decision taken by the people.