Russian parliament approves a bill punishing online searches for information deemed \u2018extremist\u2019<\/a><\/p>\nProsecutions for social media posts and comments became common, showing that authorities were closely watching the online space.<\/p>\n
Still, experts had dismissed Kremlin efforts to rein in the internet as futile, arguing Russia was far from building something akin to China\u2019s \u201cGreat Firewall,\u201d which Beijing uses to block foreign websites.<\/p>\n
Ukraine invasion triggers crackdown<\/p>\n
After Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the government blocked major social media like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, as well as Signal and a few other messaging apps. VPNs also were targeted, making it harder to reach restricted websites.<\/p>\n
YouTube access was disrupted last summer in what experts called deliberate throttling by authorities. The Kremlin blamed YouTube owner Google for not maintaining its hardware in Russia. The platform has been wildly popular in Russia, both for entertainment and for voices critical of the Kremlin, like the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny.<\/p>\n
Cloudflare, an internet infrastructure provider, said in June that websites using its services were being throttled in Russia. Independent news site Mediazona reported that several other popular Western hosting providers also are being inhibited.<\/p>\n
Cyber lawyer Sarkis Darbinyan, founder of Russian internet freedom group Roskomsvoboda, said authorities have been trying to push businesses to migrate to Russian hosting providers that can be controlled.<\/p>\n
He estimates about half of all Russian websites are powered by foreign hosting and infrastructure providers, many offering better quality and price than domestic equivalents. A \u201chuge number\u201d of global websites and platforms use those providers, he said, so cutting them off means those websites \u201cautomatically become inaccessible\u201d in Russia too.<\/p>\n
Another concerning trend is the consolidation of Russia\u2019s internet providers and companies that manage IP addresses, according to a July 30 Human Rights Watch report.<\/p>\n
Last year, authorities raised the cost of obtaining an internet provider license from 7,500 rubles (about $90) to 1 million rubles (over $12,300), and state data shows that more than half of all IP addresses in Russia are managed by seven large companies, with Rostelecom, Russia\u2019s state telephone and internet giant, accounting for 25%.<\/p>\n
The Kremlin is striving \u201cto control the internet space in Russia, and to censor things, to manipulate the traffic,\u201d said HRW\u2019s Kruope.<\/p>\n
Criminalizing \u2018extremist\u2019 searches<\/p>\n
A new Russian law criminalized online searches for broadly defined \u201cextremist\u201d materials. That could include LGBTQ+ content, opposition groups, some songs by performers critical of the Kremlin \u2014 and Navalny\u2019s memoir, which was designated as extremist last week.<\/p>\n
Right advocates say it\u2019s a step toward punishing consumers \u2014 not just providers \u2014 like in Belarus, where people are routinely fined or jailed for reading or following certain independent media outlets.<\/p>\n
Stanislav Seleznev, cyber security expert and lawyer with the Net Freedom rights group, doesn\u2019t expect ubiquitous prosecutions, since tracking individual online searches in a country of 146 million remains a tall order. But even a limited number of cases could scare many from restricted content, he said.<\/p>\n
Another major step could be blocking WhatsApp, which monitoring service Mediascope said had over 97 million monthly users in April.<\/p>\n
WhatsApp \u201cshould prepare to leave the Russian market,\u201d said lawmaker Anton Gorelkin, and a new \u201cnational\u201d messenger, MAX, developed by social media company VK, would take its place. Telegram probably won\u2019t be restricted, he said.<\/p>\n
MAX, promoted as a one-stop shop for messaging, online government services, making payments and more, was rolled out for beta tests but has yet to attract a wide following. Over 2 million people registered by July, the Tass news agency reported.<\/p>\n
Its terms and conditions say it will share user data with authorities upon request, and a new law stipulates its preinstallation in all smartphones sold in Russia. State institutions, officials and businesses are actively encouraged to move communications and blogs to MAX.<\/p>\n
Anastasiya Zhyrmont of the Access Now digital rights group said both Telegram and WhatsApp were disrupted in Russia in July in what could be a test of how potential blockages would affect internet infrastructure.<\/p>\n
It wouldn\u2019t be uncommon. In recent years, authorities regularly tested cutting off the internet from the rest of the world, sometimes resulting in outages in some regions.<\/p>\n
Darbinyan believes the only way to make people use MAX is to \u201cshut down, stifle\u201d every Western alternative. \u201cBut again, habits \u2026 do not change in a year or two. And these habits acquired over decades, when the internet was fast and free,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Government media and internet regulator Roskomnadzor uses more sophisticated methods, analyzing all web traffic and identifying what it can block or choke off, Darbinyan said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been helped by \u201cyears of perfecting the technology, years of taking over and understanding the architecture of the internet and the players,\u201d as well as Western sanctions and companies leaving the Russian market since 2022, said Kruope of Human Rights Watch.<\/p>\n
Russia is \u201cnot there yet\u201d in isolating its internet from the rest of the world, Darbinyan said, but Kremlin efforts are \u201cbringing it closer.\u201d<\/p>\n
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