Website by website and app by app, Russia is trying to control the domestic internet. And that works. Facebook, Instagram and X/Twitter have been unavailable to regular Russian consumers since last year. Since this month, VPNs – the abbreviation of virtual private networka way to get around strict regional restrictions – each blocked and banned.
“The Internet is under total censorship,” says Mikhail Klimaryov, head of OZI, the Russian Internet Defense Community. His organization operates in exile. “Sometimes Russia acts on the level of China, sometimes it is stricter.” The websites of independent media such as Novaya GazetaMedusa and The Moscow Times are blocked, as are those of many blogs and international news sites.
Already in 2019, with the signing of the law for the ‘sovereign internet’, it became clear that the Kremlin eventually wanted to disconnect Russia from the world wide web. At the time, it was jokingly referred to by journalists as the inter-not named. Although the Russian internet is still not fully sovereign, the war has accelerated this process.
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It is not only the Kremlin that is engaged in disconnecting Russia. In the wave of Western reprisals for the raid decided three major internet providers that are part of the backbone of international internet connections, to disconnect Russia. Google, Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, Meta, Netflix and many other companies also voluntarily decided to limit or suspend their activities in Russia.
Outside the sanctions packages
Natalia Krapiva of digital civil rights organization Access Now sees it with sorrow. Her organization has successfully lobbied to keep digital services outside the international sanctions packages. “But that does not prevent individual companies from taking unilateral action,” says Krapiva. “Every month there is a platform that says that they are stopping their services in Russia. We then try to make it clear to them that their services are not covered by the sanctions.”
But the companies are risk averse, says Krapiva. “They don’t want to deal with this, they don’t want to study the law. They just want to cut off all contact with Russia. In addition to the government’s repression, that is a really huge problem.”
Every month there is a platform that says they are stopping their services in Russia
Natalia Krapiva digital civil rights organization Access Now of the Internet
Access Now sees free internet access as “an essential part of human rights”, because the population can find information online about the immediate environment, education and medical matters. In addition, citizens can “connect via the web and decide to unite peacefully.” The latter application of the internet is probably precisely what the Kremlin wants to counter.
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The internet as ‘(social) connector’ as Western users know it still floats on three buoys in Russia: YouTube, Telegram and Google. These services can still be used in Russia.
Own background
OZI boss Klimaryov speculates on the reasons these platforms have been spared so far. Telegram and YouTube are heavily used by both pro-Putin users and opposition members. If the Kremlin were to block services, it would also affect its own supporters. YouTube also has an economic function: companies use the video service to show advertisements and instructional videos and other images on their sites.
Klimaryov also has a suspicion about why Google has not yet been pinched. “Google is behind the operating system Android, on which three-quarters of Russian smartphones run.”
Apple has stopped importing iPhones to Russia and no more App Store purchases can be made from Russia. For a newly purchased smartphone, therefore, almost 90 percent of Russian consumers opt for the Google operating system Android (obligated with RuStore installation – an alternative App Store). Moscow would like to prevent all these smartphones from going black.
Three-quarters of Russian smartphones run on Android, so Google cannot be easily banned
Russia is putting pressure on Google. At the beginning of this year, the tech giant was fined 21.1 billion rubles (approximately 204 million euros) because Google refused to comply with removal requests from the Russian state. OZI boss Klimaryov sees it as ordinary extortion. “Google is just being robbed.”
Both Google and forum site Reddit and Wikipedia were fined this month from 2 to 3 million rubles (19,000 to 29,000 euros) because they refused to remove ‘fake news’ – read: information that is unwelcome to the Kremlin. While Reddit and Wikipedia probably won’t pay such a penalty, Google still has a bank account and operations in Russia and the company simply has to pay, says Klimaryov. Russia is very precise in stripping down the world wide web. The authorities do not only use blockades, the channeling of internet users goes along with all kinds of information campaigns. For example, there are advertisements that arouse suspicion about VPNs. There is a propaganda video in which a bartender suddenly knows everything about a customer because he would have been surfing through a VPN. That’s not how VPNs work, but how they do work is complicated to explain, so suspicion is quickly aroused.
Replica from YouTube
Facebook has previously been discredited as a threat to Russian users after the company allowed posts calling for violence against Russian soldiers in Ukraine. That was explained by Moscow as if Facebook allowed calls for the killing of all Russians.
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Russian social media users are encouraged by the government to use Russian alternatives such as VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. These are under the control of the Russian authorities.
Last week suddenly dived a Russian copy of YouTube that came from telecom company Rostelecom – of which the state is a major shareholder. The site featured all Russian-language YouTube channels, including the pages of opposition politician Navalny. IT specialists then stated that Russia may be working on a Russian replica of YouTube, which looks exactly like the popular video streaming service, but where the Kremlin can influence which videos can be seen.
When news of a Russian setback spreads through Telegram and YouTube, the Kremlin pulls the plug
Mikhail Klimaryov Russian Community for the Defense of the Internet
Both experts think that the days of YouTube and Telegram are numbered in Russia. Klimaryov: “The speed with which these services are being throttled is related to the events in Ukraine. When news of a Russian setback spreads through Telegram and YouTube, the Kremlin pulls the plug.”
But Russia will not succeed in restricting the internet completely, thinks Natalia Krapiva of Access Now. “Look at Iran, that country has a lot of experience with this. There you see that every morning people wake up again, turn on their computers and see which tools they can use to access the free internet today. It’s a game of cat and mouse.”
Klimaryov is less optimistic: “If Russia moves in the direction of North Korea, it will be a worse problem than there. We are bigger. Russia has much more resources, and a good computer engineering education. If you use all of that, you will get results.”
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper on August 30, 2023.
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