How free is Russia’s Internet?

Internet is a free space in Russia. It is a place where people resolve a host of issues related to their world-view as well as intellectual and psychological problems. Of course, the Internet space is nonetheless under the control of the authorities, especially when online discussions concern issues that could endanger the powers that be.

Alexander Prokhanov, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Zavtra shares his view on the issue.

I believe that the Internet is a free space in Russia. It is a place where people resolve a host of issues related to their world-view as well as intellectual and psychological problems. Of course, the Internet space is nonetheless under the control of the authorities, especially when online discussions concern issues that could endanger the powers that be. In such cases, suppression or support groups are established to contribute an element of white noise, taking the discussions, especially political ones, to the irrational extremes. These groups are used to suppress political initiatives.

The new law on the police, which came into force on March 1, 2011, includes a clause allowing them to close down any online resource without a court order. I don’t think this measure really aimed at fighting copyright violations. It is sheer banditry, because a blog or a website, especially one that is registered as a media outlet, is no different from a newspaper or TV show. Such attacks “at the dead of night,” without any warning or even a court ruling, are crude and abhorrent acts of force.

I think that such attacks, or even the introduction of limitations on individual sites or, worse still, the whole of the national Internet space can only be justified and are only permissible in a state of emergency announced by the authorities to combat a terrorist threat, anti-government revolt, or massive attacks on the Constitution.


Full version of his interview was originally published on valdaiclub.com

It seems to be a little ham-fisted, Russian bureaucracy it seems lacks the finesse some european countries have when they need the power to censor websites.

For example, yesterday was an DDOS attack on the most popular russian blog-platform livejournal.com
Some politicians suppose this attack was inspired by Kremlin

That would be silly, the Kremlin is too classy for that. Especially an attack on the platform in general rather than targeted individuals.

Kss said:

Internet is a free space in Russia.

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It is theory!

The Praxis is, if you are against Dictator Putin, KGB, Mafia, Oligarchs you are an "extremist", you will be beaten, senteced to prison or killed. Just put in Google and read lots of stories about russian bloggers who were persecuted by russian "police" ( practically the outlet of mafia ).

Kss said:

For example, yesterday was an DDOS attack on the most popular russian blog-platform livejournal.com
Some politicians suppose this attack was inspired by Kremlin

Click to expand...

Not by Kremlin but by FSB ( the new name of KGB ).

Russia adopted the "impossible" the law of total surveillance of users Runet

The state Duma has approved in the first reading a bill requiring operators and Internet companies over three years to store all conversations of its subscribers.

// Source in russian (autotranslated)

Telecom operators will have over a three-year period to store on the territory of Russia information "about the facts of reception, transmission, delivery and (or) processing of voice information and text messages, including their contents, as well as images, sound or other communications users of communications services". Thus, we are talking about storing all telephone conversations, SMS messages, Internet traffic, etc.

Costs of Telecom operators and Internet companies on the implementation of this bill in its current form would amount to 5.2 trillion rubles (near 80 billions USD). On it informs "Interfax" with reference to the conclusion of the working group "Communication and information technology under the government of Russia. Such costs are unaffordable, experts warn: technical and financial resources to meet the requirements of the law by operators when there is no in principle corresponding free storage.

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The centre's experts believe that the purpose of the bill is still not reached, as already 49% of the total transmitted traffic is encrypted, and for three years its share will rise to 90%.

The expert of "TransTeleCom" Alex Kipchatov assessed the needs of operators in the data storage system in the case of the adoption of this bill, 1.7 billion TB. This is four times larger than the combined volume of the winchesters produced in the world every year 400 million TB.

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In Russia there is a saying: "the severity of Russian laws is always offset by not having their performance". I think it will be a vivid example of this phenomenon.