Internet Censorship in Russia

Freedom House 2022 Russia Ranking

Russian internet censorship refers to the government's efforts to control and restrict the information that Russian citizens can access through the internet. The censorship regime is an example of decentralized control, which can be technically difficult and expensive to execute. Government authorities are less capable of implementing technological censorship measures unilaterally when they do not directly own the networks; instead, they must adopt controls through laws and policies to force the network owners to comply.The Russian government implements this censorship using a variety of means, including blocking websites, banning certain content, and requiring internet service providers to store data on their users' online activities.

In 2022, Russia received a “not free” for the Internet Freedom Score by Freedom House due to obstacles to access, limits on content, and violations of user rights

Policy

History

one of the first internet censorship laws was passed in response to a series of large-scale protests from 2011 to 2013 in opposition to the parliamentary election's manipulation and the so-called rokirovka, which involved the switching of positions between President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin at the time, where the opposition extensively utilized the internet to rally the public. In response, the state passed a law in 2012 establishing a centralized list of banned websites. The register originally contained websites that offered drugs and child pornography. But less than two years later, in 2014, it was expanded to include websites that encouraged rioting, contained extremist material, or encouraged participation in large-scale public demonstrations.

Roskomnadzor

Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, or Roskomnadzor, is the primary government agency in Russia that is responsible for overseeing and regulating nationwide Russian Internet censorship that reports directly to the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation. Roskomnadzor maintains a singular and centralized Internet blocklist, officially called the Registry of Banned Sites. This registry was implemented in 2008 (.rkn.gov.ru). Although Roskomnadzor maintains the central registry of banned sites, they are not behind the technical implementation of censorship in Russia. Upon the identification of a website with illegal content, Roskomnadzor sends notice to the website’s owner and hosting provider. If the illegal content is not removed within three days, the corresponding site is added to Roskomnadzor’s registry, and all ISPs across Russia are required to block access to websites in this registry. Therefore, the implementation of censorship falls on Russian ISPs

The Sovereign Internet Law

The Sovereign Internet Law is commonly used to refer to the series of amendments Russia passed to the federal law in November, 2019. The official goal of the revisions is to protect Russian internet users from external threats. The policy, theoretically, would enable Russia to run its own internal networks separate from the rest of the global internet.

Censorship after the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Over the past decade, Russia's censorship regime has become more active, but recent events have brought it to public attention. Internet censorship in Russia has intensified since Feb 2022, when the invasion of the neighboring country Ukraine began. Around 138,000 websites, including social media platforms Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, have been blocked or shut down under claims of “fake news” and “extremist organization.” . Many of the websites that have been blocked have condemned the conflict in Ukraine or called it an invasion or war instead of the Kremlin's preferred term, "special military operation. New rules imposed soon after the invasion make it illegal to express opposition to the war or to share information about it that is not supported by the Kremlin. Additionally, in the same time frame, all independent media organizations in Russia have been either blocked or shut down, and numerous journalists have left the nation to escape prosecution and charges.

Ethical Implications

Data Privacy

Since a law passed in 2015, "all domestic and foreign internet companies are obliged to ensure the recording, systematization, accumulation, and storage of the personal data of Russian citizens on servers physically located within Russia." Additionally, Yarovaya’s Law was passed in 2016, which is a series of provisions for claimed for "anti-terrorism." With this law, ISP companies must retain all transmitted data, including video, telephone calls, text messages, web traffic, and email for six months as well as their metadata for three years within Russian territory, and the Russian government no longer needs a permit to access this data. They must provide this information to security services upon request. Critics have expressed significant privacy concerns, claiming that the bill makes it easier for the Russian government to spy on its own population.