Big Tech and authoritarian states: Belarus

A Global Voices video podcast on the state of digital repression in Belarus

Originally published on Global Voices

This post is part of Global Voices’ October 2026 Spotlight series, “Big Tech and Authoritarianism.” In this Spotlight, we explore how Big Tech facilitates and hinders authoritarian governments and practices, and how these choices influence the Global South. You can support this coverage by donating here.

There are more autocracies in the world in 2026 than there are democracies. Some researchers identify digital authoritarianism as the use of digital technology by regimes to surveil, repress, and manipulate domestic and foreign populations. Others argue that the same practices are also carried out by hybrid and democratic regimes. However, they can not execute them without major tech companies becoming complicit, with or without their knowledge. 

Typically, when speaking about digital authoritarianism, academics and media talk about China and Russia (and occasionally Iran and Syria).  However, countries such as Belarus (or Eritrea, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Myanmar) that consistently rank as more authoritarian than China are rarely discussed.

Global Voices invited an expert on Belarusian internet, digital rights and media, Mikhail Doroshevich, on the GV video podcast “Big Tech and Authoritarian States.”  We discussed why Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenka’s regime is not blocking Western social media platforms, how the internet and self-censorship are weaponized, and how platforms help the regime to spread its propaganda. 

You can view and listen to the podcast in Russian on our YouTube Channel and read the translated transcript below:

Daria Dergacheva (DD): Hello, dear viewers. My name is Daria Dergacheva, and welcome to another Global Voices video podcast. Today we are discussing Big Tech and authoritarian states. Our guest is Mikhail Doroshevich, who works on digital issues in Belarus. We will speak in Russian, but an English translation and subtitles will be available. Please leave your questions in the comments and like the video.

Mikhail, welcome. Please tell us a little about yourself. This is the second Global Voices video podcast I have hosted, and today we want to focus on Belarus.

Mikhail Doroshevich (MD): I can describe myself very briefly, in one sentence: I am a researcher who has been studying the Belarusian internet for more than 30 years. A well-known political scientist once introduced me in a publication as a “veteran of the Belarusian internet.” Since then, I have jokingly used that description myself. But let us talk about something more interesting.

DD: Being a veteran of the Belarusian internet is interesting in itself! I would also like to talk about its history and what is happening now. I recently saw an article from Carnegie suggesting that the internet in Belarus remains considerably more open than in Russia. I find this paradox fascinating. How does the Belarusian regime deal with Western, Chinese, and Russian platforms?

MD: That is quite a complicated technical question. In infrastructural terms, the Belarusian internet has always been more restricted than the Russian internet. By infrastructure, I mean connectivity and connections to the global internet. Since the 1990s, Russian internet providers and mobile telecommunications companies have had their own international connections. Belarus, by contrast, has always had a vulnerable infrastructure.

International connections were controlled by state-owned companies, including the national operator. Private providers and mobile operators never had their own independent international connections. Yet today Russia restricts access to many social media services, from LinkedIn onwards, while Belarus does not impose comparable restrictions on those platforms. So Belarus historically had greater technical constraints, and shutdowns regularly accompanied political campaigns. Blocking websites and resources designated as extremist or terrorist is still widespread and ongoing. But Belarus has not followed the path Russia has taken in recent years. Their technological approaches have diverged.

DD: Do you think the platforms comply with [blocking or takedown] requests from the Belarusian state? Why is this happening?

MD: We would have to look at the platforms’ annual transparency reports. Of course the state sends requests. As far as I recall, both Meta and Google have reported receiving requests from Belarus. Whether and how they respond is another matter. That is a question for the platforms themselves. Belarus also faces restrictions imposed by technology companies. For example, some artificial intelligence services are unavailable to Belarusian users.

DD: And ChatGPT?

MD: That is OpenAI. Yes, OpenAI’s services are unavailable.

DD: In April, YouTube removed Belarusian television channels that had previously been available. Has anything changed since then, or do they remain removed? And why did the government apparently not react?

MD: The government did react. Additional channels were affected in September, with one taken down literally during a live broadcast. It is important to understand that YouTube does not simply switch a channel off without a process. It has a three-strikes system, and these channels had received strikes. They knew about them, not least because they were creating alternative channels. They tried to move their content and audiences to alternatives both in April and in September. The September ban suggests that the enforcement was connected to ownership rather than only to content. Our hypothesis about the April removals was that they were content-related: The television channels’ YouTube accounts probably violated several platform rules. Strikes can be contested after a period of time, but that involves a legal or formal procedure.

DD: So the government has not restricted YouTube in retaliation for the removal of state-media channels?

MD: No. Many other state-owned Belarusian media outlets continue to operate on YouTube and upload hundreds of videos each month. Some of the channels that were removed are trying to move their content to Rutube [a Russian video platform]. Belarus also has a domestic video platform, but neither comes close to YouTube in technical capabilities, functionality, or usage.

DD: Why do you think Lukashenko’s government has not entered into the same direct confrontation with platforms as Putin’s government? Why does it not block Western platforms? And Russian platforms such as VKontakte still work, correct?

MD: Of course they do. The authorities themselves use these platforms. That brings us back to the previous question: Why block the platforms on which they operate?

DD: Have Google or Meta services blocked state-supported media or other accounts associated with the Belarusian authorities?

MD: There have been removals following user complaints, affecting both state and independent media, but only for short periods.

DD: So there have been no major conflicts with Western, Russian, or Chinese platforms?

MD: I doubt that Chinese domestic platforms are widely used in Belarus, apart from among Chinese citizens living there. TikTok is a different case: it is not available inside China itself.

DD: Are people in Belarus punished for posts, likes, and similar activity?

MD: Yes, and it is terrible. Large numbers of people are continually subjected to repression for likes or comments. They receive actual prison sentences and fines. Unfortunately, the practice continues.

DD: Which social networks provide the information used in these cases? Are people punished for activity on Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube?

MD: Yes, absolutely.

DD: Where do the authorities get information about users?

MD: They use, for example, Russian tools for social profiling.

DD: So you believe this is external monitoring?

MD: I do not think the platforms are doing the monitoring. The authorities monitor users themselves, identify them, and punish them. People are also punished for subscriptions to channels discovered during searches of their devices.

DD: For example, subscribing to NEXTA [a progressive, exiled Russian-language media site] could lead to punishment?

MD: Certainly.

DD: What sort of sentences do people receive?

MD: They can be enormous and appalling. Even a minimum sentence would be a deeply troubling precedent in itself.

DD: So people practice self-censorship: they avoid liking, reposting, or writing things?

MD: Of course. It is a matter of personal safety and, unfortunately, part of everyday life in Belarus. But it is important to understand that avoiding these activities does not necessarily make people safer. Nor does it improve national security. What increases is repression. The costs of these measures are unjustifiable: they do not make life in Belarus safer or more peaceful.

If there were some sort of social contract in which restrictions led to fewer crimes or greater security, that would at least be an argument. But that is not what happens. People face severe financial penalties and restrictions for likes and reposts. You know how these platforms work: someone can accidentally like something while scrolling. People of all ages are affected, from young people to the elderly. Older users may be especially vulnerable to accidental interactions. And if we look at online fraud and other cybercrime, even official statistics show that these problems are not decreasing.

Restricting access to information resources does not reduce cybercrime. Preventive measures, media literacy, and education would do much more to protect people from criminals. Those would be more important and meaningful goals.

DD: As far as I know, Russia actively uses social media platforms, including Western ones, to spread disinformation or propaganda, whichever term you prefer. Does Belarus do the same?

MD: If Belarusian state actors are active on these platforms, then, as you can imagine, they do.

DD: Do you mean through official accounts, or also through trolls?

MD: There is an important distinction here. State news agencies and state-owned media generally observe certain boundaries in their written website publications, even when they present events in a particular way. You do not usually see direct hate speech or doxxing in those articles.

Unfortunately, television material is different. The proportion of such content is much higher in videos than in official written publications. So the same outlet might have a relatively restrained website, with its own preferred formulations, while its YouTube channel contains doxxing, hate speech, and other unacceptable material.

Then there is a third layer: individual, highly toxic channels, which are not meaningfully restricted and can behave much more aggressively.

DD: Do you mean individual propagandists, like those in Russia? Are they mostly funded by the state?

MD: They presumably receive their salaries from their state-owned employers. Whether they make these videos during working hours is something we do not know. But they certainly do not hold back in their language.

DD: What technologies are used to monitor people, including facial recognition and internet surveillance? Are they Western, Chinese, Russian, or domestically developed?

MD: I cannot tell you the exact manufacturers or versions of the software being used. More technically informed specialists would need to answer that. But we regularly see cases in which software developed in democratic countries, not only authoritarian ones, ends up being used in such systems. Unfortunately, when funding is available, companies enter tenders, and the products that meet the purchaser’s requirements are selected and deployed.

DD: Could this be investigated through publicly available procurement information?

MD: I do not follow Belarusian procurement tenders for facial recognition or monitoring systems. That is a separate specialization. There is also a conceptual problem: If a system uses TCP/IP, does that make it Western, Chinese, or Russian technology? TCP/IP itself was not developed in Russia or China.

DD: I know, for example, that many cameras in Moscow are Chinese, and Huawei servers are widely used in some parts of the infrastructure.

MD: That distinction is tricky. Look at where your phone was manufactured. Even if its brand is not associated with China, the device may have been made there.

DD: Of course. In the European Union, there are restrictions on using equipment from certain Chinese companies. I do not know the precise situation in the United States or Canada.

MD: Yes, Belarusian mobile operators use such equipment, and that is a significant issue. There is a similar problem with access to AI models. When Belarusians cannot use certain services, they may turn to Chinese or Russian models, which are censored and limited in various ways. One positive exception is Google’s Gemini, which is available in Belarus.

DD: What about Llama? It is open source.

MD: Yes, but there are questions about its capabilities. We return again to education and skills. People need to know how to use and maintain these models. Open source does not mean free to operate. Running and maintaining a model can be more expensive than simply using a proprietary service.

DD: Remind me why OpenAI and Anthropic do not operate in Belarus. Is it a matter of company policy?

MD: Possibly. There are also sanctions. TikTok, for instance, has imposed restrictions on its Russian operations since 2022, and Belarusian accounts have been used to get around those restrictions. Other social networks do not impose the same restrictions on Russian users as TikTok does.

DD: I have two more questions. Belarus used to have a rapidly developing IT sector, and the government supported some of that growth. What is happening now? Are companies still developing technology, or has everyone left? Does Belarus have its own data centers? Are Russian or Western data centers used? Can Belarusian citizens’ data be stored abroad? And are there domestic AI developments, perhaps based on open-source models?

MD: Let me start at the end. Yes, there is development based on open-source models. As for data storage, the relevant data must be kept in data centers certified by the Operational and Analytical Center, which means in Belarus. The country certainly has its own data centers.

DD: And how is the IT sector doing overall?

MD: It is developing. With the rise of AI, the entire sector worldwide is undergoing a transformation. As for companies that remain in Belarus, their customers are predominantly in the Russian Federation.

DD: Does that mean they also work for Russian military organizations?

MD: We cannot know that without looking at particular companies. It is more a question for specialists familiar with Russia’s infrastructure. Hypothetically, the Russian military might itself face restrictions on contracting developers even from countries such as Kazakhstan, Belarus, or other former Soviet states. So I would not assume that the Russian army uses Belarusian developments. But customers are not only military organizations. And many companies have offices in several countries while still employing hundreds or thousands of people in Belarus. They may be global companies with substantial Belarusian operations.

DD: Thank you very much. We will publish an English transcript of this interview on our website, and the video will be available on YouTube. Thank you again for your time. I hope we will see each other again.

MD: Thank you for your work. It is genuinely impressive. I enjoy reading the material Global Voices produces; it is very interesting.