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.

While the access to the Internet in Russia is continually growing, where in 2021 an estimated 88.3% of the Russian population was using the internet, the online environment is becoming increasingly more restrictive. In 2022, Russia received a ranking of “not free” for the Internet Freedom Score by Freedom House due to obstacles to access, limits on content, and violations of user rights.

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.

Policy

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. 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.

Yaroyova Law

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 internal servers." Additionally, Yarovaya’s Law of 2016, which is a series of provisions claimed to be 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.

The unprecedented data storage requirements have been cited as making the law's implementation both impractical and expensive. Following the law's passing, it was discovered that the necessary equipment for the data storage was non-existent. Putin has therefore requested government contracts from Russian businesses for the necessary hardware and software.

The difficulty to comply with this law is said to be a “desired feature” for the government “because they [companies] cannot reasonably comply with all the demands of the Yarovaya package, they become de facto criminals whatever their actions. And that, in turn, gives the Russian state the leverage to extract from them any other concession it desires.” Critics have expressed significant privacy concerns, claiming that the bill makes it easier for the Russian government to spy on its own population, with evidence showing the use of these surveillance capabilities to target human rights activists and opposition figures.

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.

Implementations

Deep Packet Inspection

The 2019 Sovereign Internet Law requires ISPs to accept and participate in the installation of Deep Packet Inspection systems or equivalent technology under the "Technical Means of Countering Threats" equipment. The major technical elements of DPI systems are so-called "black boxes," which are installed at the hubs of internet service providers to analyze both data packets and the content of communications. They allow for the blocking of specific content by enabling the monitoring, filtering, and slowdown of requests, allowing Roskomnadzor the ability to impose access restrictions to block undesired traffic and severely censor the Russian web.

Although the DPI technology cannot view the contents of an encrypted connection, the IP destination may be enough for Russian authorities to block requests from unwanted websites. Traffic prioritization and discrimination can also be accomplished using DPI or comparable technology. Prioritizing traffic might have a significant impact on net neutrality, particularly if it is done by a governmental agency. Roskomnadzor could favor trusted connections from entities that comply with the established regulations while slowing down the traffic speed of any unknown or undesirable connections.

Since bypassing DPI services and gaining access to restricted areas of the internet will be very challenging unless you are a highly skilled user, it is likely that the average Russian user will be the main target of the widespread implementation of DPI. This will create an "asymmetry of blocking effectiveness."

National Domain System

The implementation of a Russian National Domain Name System (DNS) refers to the creation and deployment of a national system for managing and registering domain names in Russia. The implementation of the Russian National DNS is a significant development in the country's internet infrastructure and is part of a larger effort to increase national sovereignty and control over the internet. Currently, DNS is handled in a distributed, redundant, and open manner by over 1500 instances of the 13 root servers. The proposed Russian system would need ISPs to navigate to a separate, centralized chokepoint. This will cause service degradation for users inside Russia and risk disruptions to Internet communication as websites from outside Russia will be unreachable unless a Russian-only mirror is already available, including popular sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram,

The creation of a national DNS has also raised concerns among internet freedom advocates, who worry that it could be used to restrict access to information and stifle online freedom of speech. The Russian National DNS could be used for censorship purposes if the government decides to restrict access to certain websites or online content. This could be done by controlling the registration and management of domain names, making it possible to block or redirect access to specific websites by manipulating user requests and redirecting users to the wrong website or simply blocking their access. The government could also use the system to monitor and control online activity, potentially violating the privacy of internet users. Additionally, it would undermine all currently used evasion techniques, including VPNs, Tor, and other initiatives to conceal traffic destinations, including domain fronting.

This implementation of the national DNS is difficult to implement because of the Russian internet's decentralized infrastructure, making the task large in scope and calling for a lot of coordination. Russia claims to have already implemented this infrastructure, which is managed by Roskomnadzor at the Moscow IX, where Russian TLDs are hosted, but It is yet unknown whether internet service providers are connected to it.

Since 2019, Russia has been testing the technology enabling the separation from the global internet infrastructure in specific regions. Due to the secrecy surrounding these testing, it is unknown how successful they were. Researchers of the Russian internet Andrey Soldatov and Irina Borogan estimated that by the end of 2021, due to advances in technology made since the passing of the sovereign internet law, the Kremlin is able to control 100% of mobile communications and 73% of internet traffic.

VPN and Tor

On November 2017, the Russian government implemented the 276-FZ law that requires all VPN (Virtual Private Network) providers to register with the government. This law effectively prevents proxy services, such as VPNs and anonymizers like Tor or Opera, that can bypass content restrictions and give access to websites that are blocked in Russia. It also makes it illegal for search engines to provide links to such content. The ban applies to both foreign and domestic VPN providers, with certain exceptions, including state-owned information systems and private networks. Individuals who use unregistered VPNs can be fined or face other penalties. The ban has been criticized by internet freedom advocates, who argue that it limits free speech and access to information. Despite these criticisms, the ban remains in place and is actively enforced.

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.