The benefits of increases in access and the expansion of internet infrastructure have been offset by increasing censorship. The government continues to block websites based on an expanding list of restricted content. The leading independent online news outlets that were originally blocked in the spring of 2014 for their critical coverage of the Kremlin are still restricted, while others, facing economic pressure, have changed their editorial positions to become less critical of the government. In addition, the authorities are increasingly pressing large foreign companies like Google, Twitter, and Facebook to comply with content-removal demands. Meanwhile, the government actively manipulates public opinion through state-controlled media and paid commentators.

Blocking and Filtering

Since June 2014, the government has continued to block content related to antigovernment protests, the conflict in Ukraine, or support of opposition figures. This campaign of censorship began in earnest in March 2014, when, in the run-up to the Crimean secession referendum, the prosecutor general issued an order to block access to three major opposition websites—Grani.ru, a news site known for its criticism of the Kremlin, particularly the crackdown on and subsequent prosecution of participants in the 2012 Bolotnaya Square protests; Ezhednevny Zhurnal (Ej.ru), a news and opinion site; and Kasparov.ru, the website of former chess champion and current opposition figure Gary Kasparov.[18] The owners of the websites were not provided with an explanation as to what content had violated the law and prompted the blocking order. At the same time, the authorities blocked access to the personal blog of opposition leader Aleksey Navalny and the website of the radio station Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow), though these two were unblocked within a few days.[19]

In December 2014, ahead of the sentencing of Navalny and his brother Oleg in what was widely seen as a trumped-up fraud case, Roskomnadzor issued a request to Facebook to block an event page for a planned protest on Moscow’s Manezh Square on January 15, which thousands of users had already indicated they would attend. Facebook initially complied with the request, though it refrained from blocking subsequent event pages.[20] On December 30, when the sentencing was moved up in a bid to preempt the protests, Roskomnadzor issued warnings to four media outlets that reported on the sentencing and carried links to a video of Navalny calling for demonstrations. The agency claimed the sites had posted content that was inciting extremism.[21] Similarly, the former technical director of the social-networking site VKontakte, Nikolay Durov, reported that on December 21 the company had received 53 requests from Roskomnadzor to “block all pages, groups, and events that mention the name ‘Navalny.’”[22]

From 2012 to 2013 the Russian government enacted legal amendments that gave several agencies—including Roskomnadzor, the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights and Human Wellbeing (Rospotrebnadzor), and the Federal Drug Control Service—the authority to make decisions about blocking various categories of information. Currently, these agencies have the authority to block, without a court order, the following types of content: information about suicide, drug propaganda, child pornography, information about juvenile victims of crimes, materials that violate copyright, content related to extremism, and calls for unsanctioned public actions or rallies. Any other information may be blocked by a court decision, provided that the court finds the content illegal.

According to the nonprofit project RosComSvoboda, which conducts ongoing monitoring of blocked content, the following were blocked by the end of May 2015:

773 sites for extremism and calls for protests (by orders from the Prosecutor General’s Office)

3,981 sites containing drug-related content (by orders from the Federal Drug Control Service)

82 sites containing suicide propaganda (by the decision of Rospotrebnadzor)

2,613 sites for the distribution of child pornography (by the decision of Roskomnadzor)

2,701 sites, based on other court decisions, for the publication of various banned information

In most cases the legal framework offers no clear criteria for evaluating the legality of content, and public authorities do not always offer a detailed explanation for blocking decisions. The lack of precise guidelines sometimes leads telecom operators, which are responsible for complying with blocking orders, to carry out the widest blocking possible so as to avoid fines and threats to their licenses. Telecom operators are obliged to regularly consult the “blacklist” of banned websites, updated by Roskomnadzor. Moreover, the law does not specify how ISPs should restrict access; for example, based on the internet protocol (IP) address, the domain name, or the URL of the targeted page. Often the authorities do not consider it necessary to clearly indicate the specific pages that are meant to be blocked on a given site. As a result, entire sites, against which the authorities do not have any formal complaints, are often blocked. According to RosComSvoboda statistics, there are currently 262,991 websites that have been accidentally blocked due to blocking orders carried out on the basis of IP addresses.

Content Removal

The existing process for blocking online content, which only gives website owners a few hours or a few days to comply with the request, often leads them to delete the banned information rather than risk having the entire site blocked.

In cases where websites are registered as mass media, Roskomnadzor has additional powers to issue warnings to the editorial board about “abuse of freedom of mass media.” Article 4 of the law “On Mass Media” implies that such abuse can include, for example, incitement to terrorism, extremism, propaganda of violence and cruelty, information about illegal drugs, and obscene language. If a media outlet receives two warnings within a year, Roskomnadzor has the right to apply for a court order to shut down the media outlet. Usually, the warnings from Roskomnadzor contain instructions to remove or edit the offending material. For example, in August 2014, at least 14 media outlets received warnings for publishing reports on a protest movement calling for greater regional autonomy, or “federalization,” particularly in Siberia. For instance, the magazine New Times was forced to remove from its website a large overview of the federalization phenomenon by journalist Aleksandr Litoy.

On December 30, 2014, Roskomnadzor issued warnings against four media outlets—Polit.ru, Business Online, BFM.ru, and Mediazona—for publishing materials containing “calls to change the constitutional order.” The content was actually a video of Aleksey Navalny’s speech after the verdict in the fraud case.[23] In January 2015, at least six media outlets received warnings for publishing materials on that month’s terrorist attack against the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, with Roskomnadzor issuing a formal statement that any cartoons on religious themes would be treated as extremism.[24] Most of the media outlets that received these warnings chose to remove the materials.

According to Twitter’s Transparency Report covering July to December 2014, the company received 91 requests to remove information from Russian authorities, of which 13 percent were satisfied—two accounts and nine tweets were withheld.[25] After the publication of the report, the head of Roskomnadzor publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that Twitter was not fully cooperating and had refused to disclose user data or delete information at the request of Russian authorities.[26] In the second half of 2014, Facebook limited access to 55 pieces of content “under local laws prohibiting content that promotes drug use and self-harm, extremist activities, unsanctioned mass riots/marches, and for violating the integrity of the Russian Federation.”[27]

Media, Diversity, and Content Manipulation

The online media environment is becoming more restricted as the government attempts to counteract information that might undermine its authority. While Russians are still able to access a wide variety of outside sources, many independent online media outlets within Russia have been forced to shut down over the past two years due to increasing pressure from the government, and progovernment trolling continues to be a problem. Self-censorship is encouraged by the vague wording of restrictive legislation, the seemingly arbitrary manner in which these laws are enforced, and the near-total ineffectiveness of judicial remedies. Laws prohibiting “extremist content” and the government’s crackdown on several media outlets have resulted in a chilling effect on free speech, particularly with regard to such sensitive topics as governance failures by the authorities, corruption, war with Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea, violation of civil rights, religion, and the LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex) community.

Several online media outlets that were originally blocked in March 2014 remain restricted. A number of other media outlets have received warnings from Roskomnadzor for their coverage of protests, the attack on Charlie Hebdo, or the criminal cases of Aleksey Navalny, meaning they run the risk of receiving a second warning and losing their licenses. While individuals are still able to use circumvention tools to access blocked content, officials at various levels have repeatedly spoken about the need to block access to such tools, though legislation to that effect has not yet been adopted. Despite the continued availability of circumvention tools, all blocked resources have reported a significant reduction in traffic.

In the spring of 2015, hackers published leaks of correspondence from the deputy head of the Office of Internal Policy of the Presidential Administration, which indicated that the administration is actively involved in a number of media outlets’ editorial policies and uses Roskomnadzor and the Prosecutor General’s Office to exert pressure on those who resist such directives.[28]

Russian authorities continue to use the assistance of paid commentators to influence online content. A 2013 investigation conducted by journalists at Novaya Gazeta showed that some members from the pro-Kremlin youth movements Nashi and Molodaya Gvardiya organized paid campaigns on social-networking sites.[29] In January 2014, the editors of the German newspaper Die Zeit reported a wavelike increase in the number of anti-Western user comments, believed to be propaganda, on the paper’s website at the time of the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine.[30] Other media outlets, including Forbes and the Guardian, reported a similar flood of “insulting, combative” comments on any articles related to Russia or Ukraine. In March 2015, journalists at Novaya Gazeta and the St. Petersburg outlet Moy Rayon published an investigation into the activity of pro-Kremlin paid commentators, revealing more than 500 accounts on the LiveJournal blogging platform that specialized in the publication of progovernment views and harassment of opposition activists.

Several new laws enacted during the coverage period also had the potential to restrict the information available online. In October 2014 Putin signed amendments to the law “On Mass Media” that prohibit foreign citizens and organizations from owning more than 20 percent stakes in Russian media; the changes are scheduled to take effect in January 2016, though outlets have until 2017 to reduce their existing foreign ownership. In May 2015, a new law on “undesirable organizations” included bans on disseminating information from the blacklisted organizations.

Data-localization laws can also have an impact on companies’ ability to operate within a given jurisdiction, and in July 2014 the Russian government enacted a law requiring technology companies processing Russians’ data to host the information on local servers. As international companies decided how and whether to comply with the law ahead of the September 1, 2015, deadline, some chose to reduce their presence in the country. In September 2014 the Russian branch of Adobe applied for liquidation.[31] In November, Microsoft announced that it was closing its engineering office in Zelenograd and moving part of its staff to Prague.[32] One month later, Google announced that it would also be closing its engineering offices in Russia.[33]

Digital Activism

Despite the continued government pressure, the internet in Russia remains the most versatile and effective tool for activism. In 2014, social-networking sites were used successfully to organize public events. Some experts believe that the large groups that mobilized to demonstrate support for the Navalny brothers drove the courts to move up their sentencing date from January 15 to December 30—to preempt planned protests—and influenced the eventual outcome, in which Aleksey Navalny was sentenced to probation instead of imprisonment. Information about the protests spread on Facebook, Twitter, Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki, Google+, and other platforms, and demonstrations were organized in Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Perm, Novosibirsk, Berlin, New York, and London.

In addition to organizing protests via social media, Russians have continued to use crowdfunding as a tool for activism and mobilization. The crowdfunding platforms Planeta.ru and Boomstarter.ru have collected approximately US$7 million over two years to fund various community projects.