Hello, I'm Aleh and I conducted a little social experiment recently.
I turned off an online tool for users residing in russia.
The tool is used to share and debug computer programs, and I'm its creator and currently the sole active maintainer.
The feedback from the affected russians was what you'd expect from someone clearly only caring for themselves and vaguely aware of the current war russia is conducting on their behalf.
Keep in mind that these are qualified specialists with high societal status in russia and supposedly not susceptible to lowly propaganda.
The examples include calling me a faggot, a fascist, calling my actions 'his struggle' (referring to Mein Kampf) or an illness.
Someone wondered if these actions would lead to a faster 'denazification' of Ukraine.
Another one assumed the slogan 'DEATH TO INVADERS FROM RUSSIA' (which is a copy of soviet 'DEATH TO INVADERS FROM GERMANY' Great Patriotic War slogan) is fascist.
A few wondered 'if something happened', and one was saying '80% of russians don't support the war'.
I did receive two suggestions on how to improve the message, one of them from a Ukrainian.
I did not receive any messages with support for me personally or Ukraine or showing remorse with what their country is doing.
They will continue to support the war with their obedience to the regime, taxes and whatever else it will demand from them.
There is an urgent need to isolate them, at the very least stop doing any business and provide any services until they pay what they owe to Ukraine,
so that they understand their responsibility and cannot continue with their lives as usual at the time when russia is bombing cities.
Notes:
The change that turned off the tool is here https://github.com/scalacenter/scastie/commit/b2353d92b0d5761070bfd69cc5882fc4956d75e8
The feedback was gathered from russian telegram chat with most of users of the tool, starting here https://t.me/scala_ru/337754 and from the comments to the change
Some of the examples of feedback follow (the others were deleted promptly):
