The popular esports organization, FACEIT, has reacted to criticism from Ukrainians regarding the introduction of servers in Moscow, which can be used for playing CS:GO.
But first, let's understand who FACEIT had to explain themselves to and how it all began.
The first to speak out was the well-known Ukrainian commentator and streamer Arseniy "ceh9" Trinozhenko. He wrote the following on his official Twitter account:
On September 28, 2023, the popular English-language esports platform FACEIT announced the launch of "new locations" for its servers in Moscow. This platform hosts esports tournaments and matches for popular games like Counter-Strike and PUBG. At the same time, all players from the EU can play on Moscow servers, justifying it as "avoiding language barriers." Any foreign IT company in Russia is required to comply with the "Landing Law" (No. 236-FZ), which obliges owners of foreign IT resources with a significant Russian audience to establish official representations in the Russian Federation. These representations must store data of users who use servers in this location.Unfortunately, since this country is neighboring Ukraine, players from our country will by default be directed to Russian servers, where the data of our citizens will be accessible to all special services, as part of the project for which this law was created.
Therefore, I request consideration of the possibility of restricting access to this platform to prevent the transmission and tracking of data of Ukrainian esports players, either through an official appeal to the platform from the United Kingdom or at the regional level, by requiring Ukrainian Internet providers to block access to servers of this neighboring terrorist state.
Following this, Arseniy posted a couple more tweets in which he called on citizens of Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan to boycott FACEIT's Moscow servers. He also demanded clear explanations as to why the company is expanding its business in Russia while it continues to oppress Ukrainian citizens every day.
After a couple of days, FACEIT made changes to its FAQ section, purportedly in response to ceh9's request. Now, their FAQ section titled "I am concerned about data exchange and the Moscow server. How does this work?" looks like this:
First of all, we express our condolences regarding the situation in Ukraine. As for the Moscow server, its operation is as follows:Players are given the option to select a game server before initiating matchmaking.
For all players in the European region, CS2 defaults to the following preselection:
Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. If a player wishes to play in Moscow, they need to choose this game server.
Data stored on servers outside Russia and network data are never transmitted to a Russian game server, whether controlled by a Russian company or under the authority of Russian authorities.
Our server provider does not have access to the network on the game server, so they do not have access to any data, and we do not transmit any information to them.
In reality, it is still unclear why FACEIT began to expand its business in the Russian Federation. This question remains a hot topic in the Ukrainian community, and many Ukrainian influencers continue to advocate for boycotting the platform.
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