Freedom of Expression in Russia's New Mediasphere

Mariëlle Wijermars, Katja Lehtisaari, Mariëlle Wijermars, Katja Lehtisaari

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429793332
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Scienze sociali
• Subtopic: Studi asiatico-americani

In recent years, the Russian government has dramatically expanded its restrictions on the internet, while simultaneously consolidating its grip on traditional media. The internet, however, because of its transnational configuration, continues to evade comprehensive state control and offers ever new opportunities for disseminating and consuming dissenting opinions. Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, including media law, human rights, political science, media and cultural studies, and the study of religion, this book examines the current state of the freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and media freedom in Russia, focusing on digital media and cross-media initiatives that bridge traditional and new media spheres. It assesses how the conditions for free speech are influenced by the dynamic development of Russian media, including the expansion of digital technologies, explores the interaction and transfer of practices, formats, stylistics and aesthetics between independent and state-owned media, and discusses how far traditional media co-opt strategies developed by and associated with independent media to mask their lack of free expression. Overall, the book provides a deep and rich understanding of the changing structures and practices of national and transnational Russian media and how they condition the boundaries of freedom of expression in Russia today.

Part I
Frameworks for freedom of expression in Russia’s new media

1 The occupation of Runet? The tightening state regulation of the Russian-language section of the internet

Markku Lonkila, Larisa Shpakovskaya and Philip Torchinsky

Introduction: the Russian 2011–2013 protest wave as a watershed moment in internet regulation

In this chapter, we scrutinise the Russian state’s regulation of the Russian-language section of the internet and social media – often dubbed ‘Runet’ by Russian internet users – for political purposes.¹ We focus on the series of regulative actions whose development and implementation began during and after the anti-governmental protest wave in Russia in 2011–2013. Internet and social media played an important role during the mobilisation and organisation of these protests that brought tens of thousands of frustrated Russians to the streets of Moscow and other Russian cities for the first time since the 1990s, challenging the legitimacy of the Putin–Medvedev government.

The protests served as a wake-up call for the government concerning the ability of the internet and social media to summon people for public rallies. Contrary to the established state control over traditional media, including federal TV channels, the Russian-language section of the internet had remained relatively free until the protests, with the exception of the occasional exertion of pressure on individual Russian bloggers (see Popugaeva 2018). The protests marked a clear turning point in the government’s information policy. They compelled the Kremlin to restrict the use of the Russian-language internet and social media for anti-government debate and mobilisation, which we refer to here as the ‘occupation’ of Runet.²

A complete description of the events and legislative changes related to internet regulation in Russia would exceed the scope of a single chapter. Instead, we present an overview of what we consider to be a coordinated attempt to gain tighter state control over the political uses of Runet. The adoption of regulatory measures accelerated rapidly after the opposition protests and in March 2013, Aleksei Mitrofanov – the head of the parliamentary committee on information policy, technology and communications – warned that ‘the era of an absolutely free internet in Russia has ended’ (Milashina 2013). His words are corroborated by Gainutdinov and Chikov in their report on threats to internet freedom:

2012 was a watershed year for the Russian Internet. The Internet moved rapidly away from the margins of social and political life and demonstrated its extremely wide-ranging potential for use by Russian activists to organize themselves. In so doing, it also attracted the close attention of the authorities. For the first time, the Russian state has started to see the Internet as the principal threat to its prosperity and stability.

(2013)

In their follow-up report in 2017, Gainutdinov and Chikov (2017, 19) stated even more sharply that the attitude of the Russian state towards the internet had turned into a ‘military campaign’ against the freedom of Runet.

This chapter is structured as follows. In the next section, we will briefly describe some aspects of the political context of the occupation and define the notion of Runet regulation. In the “‘Free Runet’: Runet regulation before the protest wave” section, we will examine the years prior to the mass protests, which we call the period of ‘free’ Runet. We argue that until 2012, there was a relatively weak legislative basis for internet regulation and that the laws were enforced unsystematically. In the “The beginning of the occupation of Runet, 2012–2014” section, we analyse the years 2012–2014 or the ‘beginning of the occupation’, which we consider to be one of the most important turning points in the regulation of Runet. This period was chosen because the bulk of the legislation governing Runet monitoring and control was written during these two years: numerous laws were passed, and their enforcement as well as instances of other forms of regulation grew quickly indicating the Kremlin’s changing attitude towards the internet.

For both periods – the period of ‘free Runet’ and the ‘beginning of the occupation’ – we will first address legislation directly related to internet regulation and thereafter legislation which is not directly related to internet but which can and has been used for purposes of political control, such as the law on ‘extremist activities’. We will, in addition, examine forms of regulation other than legislation that were created by the Russian state to gain control over internet use.

In the “‘Occupation expands’: Runet regulation since 2014” section, covering the expansion of the occupation, we address the most important regulation efforts put in place after 2014 with updates until the spring of 2018. In the “Did the occupation succeed?” section, we discuss the success of the occupation and the users’ resistance towards the regulation efforts. In the concluding section, we present some reflections regarding future developments of Runet regulation.

The context and concept of Runet regulation

Political context of internet regulation in Russia

The occupation of Runet is part of a more general move to restrict the leeway of Russian civil society under the Putin–Medvedev regime. Two features of the Russian political governance proposed by Vladimir Gel’man are relevant for understanding the context of the protests and subsequent occupation of Runet. First, ‘electoral authoritarianism’ (cf. Gel’man 2014) refers to the system by which the authoritarian ruling elite still holds elections to legitimise its power and to maintain its façade of a democratic system. Second, ‘half-freedom of speech’ (polusvoboda slova) (Gel’man 2010) denotes the way of controlling the Russian media landscape where the most important media, particularly nationwide TV, are kept under state control but some independent outlets (such as Novaya Gazeta or TV channel Dozhd) are still allowed to function.

Most importantly, prior to the protests, internet and social media were mostly free from state control, and the daily internet audience had been growing exponentially from 3 million in 2003 to 32 million in 2011 (Internet v Rossii 2016). This ‘half-freedom of word’ combined with the ruling elite’s need to organise elections opened a window of opportunity for the opposition in autumn 2011: citizens dissatisfied with the Duma elections started to disseminate images and videos of the blatant falsification of the election ballots in social media. They added to the mounting evidence of misconduct and corruption on the part of the authorities available on Runet for years before the protests. In response, tens of thousands of protesters gathered on Bolotnaia Square in Moscow on 10 December 2011, marking the beginning of a protest wave which shocked the Kremlin, changing its view on the new digital media.

Another key moment in time is the revival of nationalist sentiment related to the annexation of Crimea in spring 2014, which boosted Putin’s popularity and gave the ruling elite carte blanche to further regulate Runet. The new information security doctrine adopted in 2016 explicitly introduced this new approach by stressing the need to control the internet and develop domestic information technology (Doctrine of Information Security of the Russian Federation 2016; Pynnöniemi and Kari 2016).

The notion of regulation versus censorship

In this article, we use the term ‘internet regulation’ instead of ‘censorship’ since the latter often refers to mechanisms of state control for defensive and protective purposes. Censorship includes practices of screening and pre-emptive prevention of publications in print or broadcast media. By contrast, regulation is a wider and more flexible term describing more aptly the situation currently prevailing in Russia. For example, censorship does not cover either spying or proactive efforts in the form of pro-governmental blogging such as inundating the Runet with bots and organised trolling.

Our use of the term internet regulation goes beyond the colloquial understanding of term; rather, we propose to view it as a multifaceted and multilevel phenomenon. First, it may involve several actors ranging from international organisations to states, private corporations, institutions and individual citizens. In addition to human and social actors, the role of search engines and social media application algorithms is growing in importance. Second, internet regulation may occur online (e.g. blocking websites) and offline (e.g. intimidating individual bloggers). Third, regulation can be defensive (e.g. censoring contents), proactive (e.g. paid pro-government bloggers) or ‘neutral’ (e.g. spying and monitoring traffic without taking action). Fourth, regulation may also be implemented covertly, when legislation passed ostensibly on other topics is de facto used to regulate the internet (e.g. combatting child pornography or extremism). Finally, important preparatory steps towards internet regulation include the acquisition of shares in the relevant internet companies in preparation for tightening the control in the future – just in case (Pallin 2017).

In what follows, we will focus our attention on a wide variety of measures, both legal and non-legal as well as on- and offline, taken by the Russian state to gain more control over the use of the internet by civil society actors. Due to our wide focus and the wealth of relevant events, we have to be selective in order to pinpoint what we consider the milestones in a series of activities leading Russia towards an increasingly regulated internet.

‘Free Runet’: Runet regulation before the protest wave

Internet-related legislation

Prior to the protest wave, Runet was relatively free: users could share information and express political opinions without fear of legal consequences or harassment by the authorities. But gradually, law enforcement agencies became interested in the functioning and political impact of Runet. The first regulation measures concerned legislation focused on content filtering and blocking in order to inhibit political extremism and terrorism (see also Sivetc’s chapter in this volume).

The legal and technical bases for internet regulation in Russia originated in the 1990s through the System for Operative Investigative Activities (Sistema Operativno-Rozysknykh Meropriiatii, or SORM) legislation. Its first implementation (SORM-1) in 1995 required telecommunication operators to install hardware provided by the FSB (Federal’naia Sluzhba Bezopasnosti) to monitor phone, mail and web browsing communications metadata. While SORM-1 was about giving the FSB access to log files (metadata) and records of phone calls, the implementation of SORM-2 in 1999 gave the FSB online access to data transmission in real time and direct access to internet service provider hardware.

SORM-2 required the FSB to get a court warrant to access user data, but soon after Putin’s taking office as the president, the number of agencies entitled to access collected data was increased. Moreover, surveillance could start before the warrant was issued or even requested; there was no need to show the warrant to anyone, and the warrant was not needed for the retrieval of metadata (Maréchal 2017).

In 2012, SORM was extended to include social media platforms, and in 2014, an updated version introduced the use of deep packet inspection (DPI) technology. This technology enables the provider not only to monitor the traffic but also to identify the data stream users who discuss certain topics or visit certain websites or social media. This implementation brought the Russian system much closer to the idea of mass surveillance (Soldatov 2015, 75).

The Ministry for Communication, or Minkomsviaz, is the highest state institution responsible for the development and regulation of the internet. Subordinated to Minkomsviaz, the Federal Service for Supervision of Telecommunications, Information Technology and Mass Communication, or Roskomnadzor (Federal’naia sluzhba po nadzory v sfere sviazi, informatsionnykh tekhnologii i massovykh kommunikatsii)...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction: freedom of expression in Russia’s new mediasphere
• PART I Frameworks for freedom of expression in Russia’s new media
• PART II Reinventing media formats, platforms and networks
• PART III New media and fragmented audiences
• PART IV Tactics of control and subversion
• Conclusion
• Index