MOSCOW – Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Kremlin-controlled RT television network, recently called on the government to block access to Western social media.
She wrote: “Foreign platforms in Russia must be closed.”
Her choice of social network to send the message: Twitter.
While the Kremlin is afraid of an open internet formed by American companies, it just can not stop it.
The winter of discontent in Russia, waves of nationwide protests by the return of opposition leader Alexei A. Navalny, was made possible by the country’s free and open internet. The state controls the television waves, but online is the dramatic arrest of Mr. Navalny upon arrival in Moscow, his investigation into President Vladimir V. Putin’s alleged secret palace and his supporters’ calls for protest were broadcast to an audience of many millions.
The Russian government has for years instituted the technological and legal infrastructure to restrict the freedom of speech online, which has led to frequent predictions that the country could crash on internet censorship like China’s big firewall.
But although Mr. Putin faced the biggest protests in years last month, his government appeared reluctant – and to some extent incapable – to block websites or take other drastic measures to curb the spread of digital divisions. not.
The hesitation has the challenge that Mr. Putin faces underlining as he tries to stem the political implications of cheap high-speed Internet access in the remote corners of the vast country, while angering a population that has fallen in love with Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. and TikTok.
“They are scared,” said Dmitry Galushko, a Moscow telecommunications consultant, as to why the Kremlin did not tighten its grip. “They have all these weapons, but they do not know how to use them.”
More generally, the question of how to deal with the internet poses a dilemma for Mr. Putin’s Russia emerges: whether to increase the state’s oppression to new heights and venture a public setback or to try to manage public discontent by maintaining a semblance of an open society. .
In China, government control was accompanied by the early development of the Internet. But in Russia, home to a Soviet legacy of enormous pool of engineering talent, digital entrepreneurship flourished freely for two decades until Mr. Putin tried to restrict online speech after the 2011 and 2012 protests against the government.
At that time, the open Internet was so entrenched in the business world and society – and its architecture so decentralized – that it was too late to radically change course. But efforts to censor the Internet, as well as the requirements for ISPs to install equipment for government oversight and control, came in handy after the bill was passed by parliament. At the same time, internet access is still declining, thanks in part to government support.
Russian officials now say they have the technology to allow a ‘sovereign RuNet’ – a network that would still give Russians access to Russian sites, even if the country were cut off from the World Wide Web. The official line is that this expensive infrastructure provides protection if ominous Western powers try to sever Russia’s communications links. But activists say it is actually meant to give the Kremlin the option of repelling Russia or the entire country from the world.
“In principle, it is possible to restore or enable the autonomous functioning of the Russian part of the web,” Dmitry A. Medvedev, deputy chairman of Putin’s Security Council and a former prime minister, recently told reporters. “Technologically, everything is ready for this.”
Amid this year’s domestic unrest, the Russian saber-rattling work aimed at Silicon Valley has reached a new intensity. Mr. Navalny expertly used Google’s YouTube, Facebook’s Instagram and Twitter to reach tens of millions of Russians with his meme-ready images of official corruption, up to the $ 850 toilet brush he claims he identified on a property owned by Mr. Putin.
At the same time, Russia appeared powerless to try to stop the companies from blocking pro-Kremlin accounts or forcing them to take down pro-Navalny content. (Navalny’s voice echoes on social media even with him behind bars: On Saturday, the court upheld his more than two years in prison.)
Russia’s telecommunications regulator, Roskomnadzor, has slammed US Internet companies several times a day. The regulator said on Wednesday that the social chat network Clubhouse “violated citizens’ rights to access and distribute information freely” by suspending the account of a prominent state television host, Vladimir Solovyov. On January 29, it claims that Google is blocking YouTube videos with the Russian national anthem, calling it “flagrant and unacceptable rudeness against all citizens of our country”.
Clubhouse apparently has the account of mr. Solovyov blocked due to complaints from users, while Google said that some videos with the Russian national anthem were incorrectly blocked due to a content rights issue. Clubhouse did not respond to a request for comment.
In addition, Roskomnadzor said that social networks encourage minors to take part in illegal activities as calls for nationwide protests have increased following the arrest of Mr. Navalny last month.
The Russian social network VKontakte and the Chinese-owned TikTok app have partially complied with Roskomnadzor’s order to block access to protest-related content. But Facebook declined, saying, “This content does not violate our community standards.”
Because of all its criticism of American social media ventures, the Kremlin has used it extensively to spread its message around the world. It was Facebook that was a primary tool in Russia’s effort to stir up the 2016 US presidential election. On YouTube, the state-run network RT has a total of 14 million subscribers for its English, Spanish and Arabic channels.
Me. Simonyan, the editor of RT, says she will continue to use US social media platforms as long as it is not banned.
“To stop using these platforms while everyone is using them is to capitulate to the adversary,” she told The New York Times in a statement. “To ban them for all is to overcome the adversary.”
A law passed in December by Mr. Putin signed, giving his government new powers to block or restrict access to social networks, but it has yet to be used. When regulators tried to block access to the messaging app Telegram from 2018, the two-year-long attempt failed after Telegram found ways to circumvent the restrictions.
Instead, officials are trying to lure Russians on social networks such as VKontakte, which is now linked to the government. Gazprom Media, a subsidiary of the state-owned natural gas giant, has promised to turn its long-dead video platform RuTube into a rival of YouTube. And in December, he said he bought an app on TikTok called ‘Ya Molodets’ – Russian for ‘I’m Wonderful’ – to share short smartphone videos.
Andrei Soldatov, a journalist who co-authored a book on the Kremlin’s efforts to control the Internet, says the strategy of persuading people to use Russian platforms is a way to end disagreement in a time of crisis to prevent. As of April 1, all smartphones sold in Russia must be preloaded with 16 Russian-made apps, including three social networks and a response to Apple’s Siri voice assistant called Marusya.
“The goal is for the typical Russian user to live in a bubble of Russian programs,” he said. Soldatov said. “It could possibly be quite effective.”
Even more effective, according to some activists, is the acceleration of Mr. Putin’s machine of selective oppression. A new law makes online libel punishable by up to five years in prison, and the editor of a popular news website has served 15 days in prison for the rematch of a joke that includes a reference to a pro-Navalny protest in January.
In a widespread video this month, a SWAT team in the Pacific port city of Vladivostok can be seen interviewing Gennady Shulga, a local video blogger who discussed the protests. An officer in a helmet, goggles and combatants presses Mr. Shulga shirtless on a tile floor next to two bowls for pets.
“The Kremlin is losing the information race a lot,” said Sarkis Darbinyan, an Internet freedom activist. “Self-censorship and fear – that’s where we’re headed.”
Oleg Matsnev reported.