Internet

censorship in the Russian Federation Censorship in the Russian Federation is controlled by the Russian government and by civil society in the Russian Federation, applying to the content and the diffusion of information, printed documents, music, works of art, cinema and photography ...

is enforced on the basis of several laws and through several mechanisms. Since 2012, Russia maintains a centralized internet blacklist (known as the "single register") maintained by the

Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, abbreviated as ''Roskomnadzor'' (RKN) (russian: Роскомнадзор �КН, is the Russian federal executive agency responsible for monitoring, co ...

(''Roskomnadzor''). The list is used for the

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...

of individual

URLs A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...

domain name A domain name is a string that identifies a realm of administrative autonomy, authority or control within the Internet. Domain names are often used to identify services provided through the Internet, such as websites, email services and more. As ...

s, and

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...

es. It was originally introduced to block sites that contain materials advocating

drug abuse Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, is the use of a drug in amounts or by methods which are harmful to the individual or others. It is a form of substance-related disorder. Differing definitions of drug abuse are used in public health, ...

and drug production, descriptions of suicide methods, and containing

child pornography Child pornography (also called CP, child sexual abuse material, CSAM, child porn, or kiddie porn) is pornography that unlawfully exploits children for sexual stimulation. It may be produced with the direct involvement or sexual assault of a chi ...

. It was subsequently amended to allow the blocking of materials that are classified as

extremist Extremism is "the quality or state of being extreme" or "the advocacy of extreme measures or views". The term is primarily used in a political or religious sense to refer to an ideology that is considered (by the speaker or by some implied shar ...

by including them to the

Federal List of Extremist Materials Federal List of Extremist Materials (russian: Федеральный список экстремистских материалов, ''Federal'nyy spisok ekstremistskikh matyerialov'') is a list of works that are banned in Russian Federation, prim ...

. According to

Freedom House Freedom House is a non-profit, majority U.S. government funded organization in Washington, D.C., that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights. Freedom House was founded in October 1941, and Wendell Wil ...

, these regulations have been frequently abused to block criticism of the federal government or local administrations. A law prohibiting "abuse of mass media freedom" implements a process for the shutting down of online media outlets. In March 2019 the bill which introduced fines for those who are deemed (by the government) to be spreading "fake news" and show "blatant disrespect" toward the state authorities was signed into law. In June 2020, the

European Court of Human Rights The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR or ECtHR), also known as the Strasbourg Court, is an international court of the Council of Europe which interprets the European Convention on Human Rights. The court hears applications alleging that a ...

ruled against Russia in a case involving the blocking of websites critical of the government (including that of

Garry Kasparov Garry Kimovich Kasparov (born 13 April 1963) is a Russian chess grandmaster, former World Chess Champion, writer, political activist and commentator. His peak rating of 2851, achieved in 1999, was the highest recorded until being surpassed by ...

), as the plaintiffs'

freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...

had been violated.

Status

Russia was rated "partly free" in ''Freedom on the Net'' by

in 2009 (score 49), 2011 (score 52), 2012 (score 52), 2013 (score 54), and 2014 (score 60) and as "not free" in 2015 (score 62), 2016 (score 65), 2017 (score 66), and 2018 (score 67) where scores range from 0 (most free) to 100 (least free). Russia was on

Reporters Without Borders Reporters Without Borders (RWB; french: Reporters sans frontières; RSF) is an international non-profit and non-governmental organization with the stated aim of safeguarding the right to freedom of information. It describes its advocacy as found ...

list of countries under surveillance from 2010 to 2013''Internet Enemies''
, Reporters Without Borders (Paris), 12 March 2012 and was moved to the Internet Enemies list in 2014."Internet Enemies"
''Enemies of the Internet 2014: Entities at the heart of censorship and surveillance'', Reporters Without Borders (Paris), 11 March 2014. Retrieved 24 June 2014. Russia was found to engage in selective Internet filtering in the political and social areas and evidence of filtering was found in the conflict/security and Internet tools areas by the

OpenNet Initiative The OpenNet Initiative (ONI) was a joint project whose goal was to monitor and report on internet filtering and surveillance practices by nations. The project employed a number of technical means, as well as an international network of investigato ...

in December 2010."ONI Country Profiles"
Research section at the OpenNet Initiative web site, a collaborative partnership of the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto; the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University; and the SecDev Group, Ottawa Since at least 2015, Russia has been collaborating with Chinese

Great Firewall The Great Firewall (''GFW''; ) is the combination of legislative actions and technologies enforced by the People's Republic of China to regulate the Internet domestically. Its role in internet censorship in China is to block access to selected for ...

security officials in implementing its data retention and filtering infrastructure. In September 2019,

Roskomnadzor The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, abbreviated as ''Roskomnadzor'' (RKN) (russian: Роскомнадзор �КН, is the Russian federal executive agency responsible for monitoring, co ...

began installing equipment to isolate Russia, including mobile phones, from the rest of the Internet in the event the government directs such action, as required by a law taking effect in November 2019. The government's justification was to counteract potential cyber attacks from the United States, but some worried it might create an online "

iron curtain The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its s ...

".Tests scheduled: Law on Runet autonomy to come into force soon
/ref> As of late February 2022, two of the world's leading social media platforms Facebook and Twitter have been restricted in Russia by Roskomnadzor as a wartime measure amid the

invasion of Ukraine The territory of present-day Ukraine has been Invasion, invaded or Military occupation, occupied a number of times throughout History of Ukraine, its history. List See also *List of invasions *List of wars involving Ukraine References

...

. Internet rights monitor NetBlocks reported that Twitter and Facebook platforms were restricted, or throttled, across multiple

providers Providers is a Danish hip hop, R&B and pop song production team made up of Jeppe Federspiel and Rasmus Stabell.

Agencies

Media in the Russian Federation, including the internet, is regulated by ''Roskomnadzor'' (

Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, abbreviated as ''Roskomnadzor'' (RKN) (russian: Роскомнадзор �КН, is the Russian federal executive agency responsible for monitoring, co ...

)'','' a branch of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications. Roskomnadzor, along with several other agencies such as the Federal Drug Control Service, the Federal Consumer Protection Service, and the office of the

Prosecutor General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...

, can block certain classes of content without a court order: Calls for unsanctioned public actions, content deemed extremist, materials that violate copyright, information about juvenile victims of crime, child abuse imagery, information encouraging the use of drugs, and descriptions of suicide. Other content can be blocked with a court order.

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

s (ISPs) are held legally responsible for any illegal content that is accessible to their users (intermediary liability).

History

Internet in 2004–2012

In 2004 only a minority of Russians (8% of the population) had Internet access. In May 2008, some 32.7 million users in Russia had access to the Internet (almost 30% of the population). In 2012, 75.9 million Russians (53% of the population) had access."Percentage of Individuals using the Internet 2000–2012"
International Telecommunication Union (Geneva), June 2013, retrieved 22 June 2013 In December 2015, most of the country, 92.8 million Russians (70% of the population) had Internet access. Following his visit to Russia in 2004,

Álvaro Gil-Robles Álvaro Gil-Robles y Gil-Delgado (born 9 September 1944 in Lisbon, Portugal) is a Spanish jurist and human rights activist. He was the 2nd Spanish Ombudsman between 1988 and 1993 and also served as Acting Ombudsman between December 1987 and March ...

, then

Commissioner for Human Rights The Commissioner for Human Rights is an independent and impartial non-judicial institution established in 1999 by the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe, to promote awareness of and respect for human rights in the council's 46 member states. The ...

Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...

, noted the high quality of news and reaction speed of Russia's Internet media. Virtually all the main newspapers were available online, some even opting for Web as a sole information outlet. Russia's press agencies (including the most important

Ria-Novosti RIA Novosti (russian: РИА Новости), sometimes referred to as RIAN () or RIA (russian: РИА, label=none) is a Russian state-owned domestic news agency. On 9 December 2013 by a decree of Vladimir Putin it was liquidated and its asset ...

and

Itar-Tass The Russian News Agency TASS (russian: Информацио́нное аге́нтство Росси́и ТАСС, translit=Informatsionnoye agentstvo Rossii, or Information agency of Russia), abbreviated TASS (russian: ТАСС, label=none) ...

) were also well represented in the Web. In April 2008

Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C ...

noted that, "The Internet is the freest area of the media in Russia, where almost all television and many newspapers are under formal or unofficial government control". As reported by Kirill Pankratov in April 2009 in ''

The Moscow Times ''The Moscow Times'' is an independent English-language and Russian-language online newspaper. It was in print in Russia from 1992 until 2017 and was distributed free of charge at places frequented by English-speaking tourists and expatriates s ...

'':

Even discounting the chaotic nature of the web, there is plenty of Russian-language material on political and social issues that is well-written and represents a wide range of views. This does not mean, though, that most Russians are well-informed of the important political and social issues of today. But this is largely a matter of personal choice, not government restrictions. If somebody is too lazy to make just a few clicks to read and become aware of various issues and points of view, maybe he deserves to be fed bland, one-sided government propaganda.

In a November 2009 address to the Federal Assembly, then President of Russia

Dmitry Medvedev Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev ( rus, links=no, Дмитрий Анатольевич Медведев, p=ˈdmʲitrʲɪj ɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲɪtɕ mʲɪdˈvʲedʲɪf; born 14 September 1965) is a Russian politician who has been serving as the dep ...

acknowledged that Russia was ranked only as the world's 63rd country based on estimates of the level of communications infrastructure development. He stressed the necessity to provide broadband Internet access to the whole Russian territory in five years, and to manage the transition to digital TV, as well as the 4G of cellular wireless standards."Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation" (full text)
,
digest
, November 2009 In 2010

noted, that while "the absence of overt state-mandated Internet filtering in Russia has led some observers to conclude that the Russian Internet represents an open and uncontested space", the government had a consistent, strategic approach to taking control over the information in electronic media. 2007 cyberattacks on Estonia and

cyberattacks during the Russo-Georgian War During the Russo-Georgian War a series of cyberattacks swamped and disabled websites of numerous South Ossetian, Georgian, Russian and Azerbaijani organisations. The attacks were initiated three weeks before the shooting war began. Attacks On ...

(2008) may have been "an indication of the government’s active interest in mobilizing and shaping activities in Russian cyberspace".

Developments since 2012

Establishment and expansion of the blacklist

First countrywide judicial censorship measures were taken by the government in the wake of the 2011–13 Russian protests. This included the Internet blacklist law, implemented in November 2012. The criteria for inclusion in the blacklist initially included

, advocating suicide and

illegal drugs The prohibition of drugs through sumptuary legislation or religious law is a common means of attempting to prevent the recreational use of certain intoxicating substances. While some drugs are illegal to possess, many governments regulate the ...

. In 2013, the blacklist law was amended with content "suspected in extremism", "calling for illegal meetings", "inciting hatred" and "violating the established order". The law allowed for flexible interpretation and inclusion of a wide array of content which was frequently abused by the law enforcement and administration for blanket blocking of publications criticizing state policy or describing daily problems of life in Russia. Popular opposition websites encouraging protests against the court rulings in Bolotnaya Square case were for example blocked for "calling for illegal action"; ''

Dumb Ways to Die ''Dumb Ways To Die'' is an Australian public campaign made by Metro Trains in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, to promote railway safety. On 1 October 2021, PlaySide Studios () acquired the Dumb Ways to Die franchise for A$2.25 million from Met ...

'', a public transport safety video, was blocked as "suicide propaganda"; websites discussing federalization of Siberia—as "attack on the foundations of the constitution"; an article on a gay activist being fired from job as well as LGBT support communities—as "propaganda of non-traditional sex relations"; publishing

Pussy Riot Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist protest and performance art group based in Moscow that became popular for its provocative punk rock music which later turned into a more accessible style. Founded in August 2011, it has had a membership of appr ...

logo—as "insult of the feelings of believers"; criticism of overspending of local governor—"insult of the authorities"; publishing a poem in support of Ukraine—"inciting hatred" etc. A separate class of materials blocked due to "extremism" are several religious publications, mostly

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

and

Jehovah's Witnesses Jehovah's Witnesses is a millenarian restorationist Christian denomination with nontrinitarian beliefs distinct from mainstream Christianity. The group reports a worldwide membership of approximately 8.7 million adherents involved in ...

. Bans can be challenged in courts, and in some cases these appeals are successful.

Proposals for further controls

In 2015, Russia's Security Council proposed a number of further Internet controls to prevent hostile "influence on the population of the country, especially young people, intended to weaken cultural and spiritual values". Prevention of this "influence" also includes active countermeasures such as actions targeted at the population and young people of the states attempting to weaken Russia's cultural values. Another initiative proposes giving Roskomnadzor right to block any domain within the

.ru .ru is the Latin alphabet Internet country code top-level domain ( ccTLD) for Russia introduced on 7 April 1994. The Russian alphabet internationalized country code is .рф. Control of .ru is assigned to the Coordination Center for TLD ...

TLD A top-level domain (TLD) is one of the domains at the highest level in the hierarchical Domain Name System of the Internet after the root domain. The top-level domain names are installed in the root zone of the name space. For all domains in ...

without a court order. In February 2016, the business daily ''

Vedomosti ''Vedomosti'' ( rus, Ведомости, p=ˈvʲedəməsʲtʲɪ, ) is a Russian language, Russian-language business journalism, business daily newspaper published in Moscow. History ''Vedomosti'' was founded in 1999 as a joint venture between ...

'' reported on a draft law by the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications titled "On an Autonomous Internet System". The bill calls for placing the domains

and

.рф The domain name .рф (romanized as ''.rf''; abbreviation of ) is the Cyrillic country code top-level domain for the Russian Federation, in the Domain Name System of the Internet. In the Domain Name System it has the ASCII DNS name . The domain ...

under government control and would make installation of the Russian state surveillance system

SORM The System for Operative Investigative Activities (SORM; russian: Система оперативно-разыскных мероприятий) is the technical specification for lawful interception interfaces of telecommunications and telephone n ...

mandatory.

Ban on VPN and anonymizer providers

A ban on all software and websites related to circumventing internet filtering in Russia, including VPN software,

anonymizer An anonymizer or an anonymous proxy is a tool that attempts to make activity on the Internet untraceable. It is a proxy server computer that acts as an intermediary and privacy shield between a client computer and the rest of the Internet. It acce ...

s, and instructions on how to circumvent government website blocking, was passed in 2017.

Increase in Internet censorship

According to data published by the Russian Society for Internet Users founded by members of the Presidential Council for Human Rights, instances of censorship increased by a factor of 1.5 from 2013 to 2014. The incidents documented include not only instances of Internet blocking but also the use of force to shut down Internet users, such as beatings of bloggers or police raids. Human rights NGO

Agora The agora (; grc, ἀγορά, romanized: ', meaning "market" in Modern Greek) was a central public space in ancient Greek city-states. It is the best representation of a city-state's response to accommodate the social and political order of t ...

reported that instances of Internet censorship increased ninefold from 2014 to 2015, rising from 1,019 to 9,022. In April 2018, a Moscow court ordered the ban and blockage of the messaging app

Telegram Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

under anti-terrorism laws, for refusing to cooperate with the FSB and provide access to encrypted communications. Sales of

virtual private network A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The be ...

services increased significantly in the wake of the ban. The FSB has also started lobbying against any "external" satellite Internet access initiatives, including proposals to introduce stricter controls against satellite Internet receivers, as well as opposition against Roskosmos taking orders to bring

OneWeb OneWeb (legally Network Access Associates Ltd) is a communications company that aims to build broadband satellite Internet services. The company is headquartered in London, and has offices in Virginia, US and a satellite manufacturing facility ...

satellites to space. In December 2018, Google was fined 500,000 rubles for not removing blacklisted sites from its search results. In March 2019, legislation was passed to ban the publication of "unreliable socially significant information", and materials that show "clear disrespect" for the Russian Federation or "bodies exercising state power". Russian media freedom watchdog Roskomsvoboda reported that a number of people were charged with administrative fines for simply sharing a video about insufficient school places in

Krasnodar Krai Krasnodar Krai (russian: Краснода́рский край, r=Krasnodarsky kray, p=krəsnɐˈdarskʲɪj kraj) is a federal subject of Russia (a krai), located in the North Caucasus region in Southern Russia and administratively a part of t ...

on their Facebook pages, because the video was authored by "Open Russia", who is considered an "undesirable organization" by Russian authorities. The watchdog also noted an increasing trend of law enforcement using article 20.33 of the administrative violations code ("undesirable organizations"), which seems to be gradually replacing article 282 of the criminal code ("extremism") as the primary censorship instrument.

Deep packet inspection

In April 2021 Roskomnadzor started enforcing throttling of

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

traffic in Russia. The throttling was implemented with detection of domains t.co, twimg.com, and twitter.com wrapped in wildcards. Target website domains are being detected mostly in

Server Name Indication Server Name Indication (SNI) is an extension to the Transport Layer Security (TLS) computer networking protocol by which a client indicates which hostname it is attempting to connect to at the start of the handshaking process. This allows a serv ...

part of TLS handshake. The latter resulted in throttling of all domains that contained "t.co" substring, including microsoft.com etc. (An example of the

Scunthorpe problem The Scunthorpe problem is the unintentional blocking of websites, e-mails, forum posts or search results by a spam filter or search engine because their text contains a string (or substring) of letters that appear to have an obscene or otherwise ...

) TLS extensions that would prevent censorship using SNI, such as Encrypted SNI, were already blocked in 2020. In July 2021 GlobalCheck project, which monitors the actual scale and efficiency of the censorship, for the first time noticed widespread use of

deep packet inspection Deep packet inspection (DPI) is a type of data processing that inspects in detail the data being sent over a computer network, and may take actions such as alerting, blocking, re-routing, or logging it accordingly. Deep packet inspection is oft ...

(DPI) across large mobile providers which resulted in domains related to political activist

Alexei Navalny Alexei Anatolievich Navalny ( rus, links=no, Алексей Анатольевич Навальный, , ɐlʲɪkˈsʲej ɐnɐˈtolʲjɪvʲɪtɕ nɐˈvalʲnɨj; born 4 June 1976) is a Opposition to Vladimir Putin in Russia, Russian opposition ...

being efficiently blocked across around 50% of Russian networks. The DPI solution, called TSPU (

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

: ТСПУ, технические средства противодействия угрозам, English: technical measures for threat protection), has been introduced in 2019 legislation that also proposed isolation of Russian segment of the Internet. The change, passed under the rationale of protecting Russian network from external attacks, has been described by activists as actually introduced with intention of strengthening the content censorship that has proven ineffective in many cases in the past. The introduction of TSPU devices was associated by a number of problems experienced by players of ''

World of Warships ''World of Warships'' is a free-to-play naval warfare-themed multiplayer online game, developed. produced and published by Wargaming. Players can battle others at random or play cooperative battle types against bots or an advanced player versus e ...

'' and other games, that was described as a side effect of the devices blocking a broad range of UDP ports.

Registration of instant messenger users

In 2021 a new regulation was passed that requires all operators of

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

services in Russia to establish identity of users creating accounts in these services by means of verification of their mobile number. SIM card registration using passport is mandatory since 2010's. Using a public

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...

also requires registration using mobile number.

Blocking Tor

In November 2021 users in Russia started reporting issues with accessing

Tor Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to: Places * Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain * Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city * Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano * Tor Bay, Devon, England * Tor River, Western New Guinea, Indonesia Sc ...

, while Roskomnadzor published an announcement on introduction of centralized blocking of "means of circumvention" of censorship. In December 2021, the

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

together with dissident authors

Andrei Soldatov Andrei Alekseyevich Soldatov (russian: Андрей Алексеевич Солдатов, born 4 October 1975 in Moscow, Russia) is a Russian investigative journalist and Russian security services expert. Together with fellow journalist Irina B ...

and

Irina Borogan Irina Petrovna Borogan (russian: Ирина Петровна Бороган), born September 9, 1974 in Moscow, Russia, is a Russian investigative journalist. Journalism Irina Borogan started her journalistic career in 1996 as correspondent of Se ...

, accused the US-based companies

Keysight Technologies Keysight Technologies, or Keysight, is an American company that manufactures electronics test and measurement equipment and software. The name is a blend of ''key'' and ''insight''. The company was formed as a spin-off of Agilent Technologies, wh ...

and

Supermicro Super Micro Computer, Inc., dba Supermicro, is an information technology company based in San Jose, California. It has manufacturing operations in the Silicon Valley, the Netherlands and at its Science and Technology Park in Taiwan. Founded on ...

, and Sino-American

Lenovo Lenovo Group Limited, often shortened to Lenovo ( , ), is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology company specializing in designing, manufacturing, and marketing consumer electronics, Personal computer, personal computers, ...

of supplying 60 servers and several Internet traffic analysis solutions to the Moscow control center for Internet censorship in Russia.

Monitoring

SORM system

Russia's System of Operational-Investigatory Measures (SORM) requires telecommunications operators to install hardware provided by the

Federal Security Service The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB) RF; rus, Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации (ФСБ России), Federal'naya sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Feder ...

(FSB). It allows the agency to unilaterally monitor users' communications metadata and content, including phone calls, email traffic and web browsing activity. Metadata can be obtained without a warrant. In 2014, the system was expanded to include social media platforms, and the

Ministry of Communications A Communications Ministry or Department of Communications is a ministry or other government agency charged with communication. Communications responsibilities includes regulating telecommunications, postal services, broadcasting and print media. T ...

ordered companies to install new equipment with Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) capability.

Data sovereignty

The "Bloggers law" (passed July 2014) is an amendment to existing

anti-terrorism Counterterrorism (also spelled counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, incorporates the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, business, and intelligence agencies use to combat or el ...

legislation which includes

data localization Data localization or data residency law requires data about a nation's citizens or residents to be collected, processed, and/or stored inside the country, often before being transferred internationally. Such data is usually transferred only after m ...

and

data retention Data retention defines the policies of persistent data and records management for meeting legal and business data archival requirements. Although sometimes interchangeable, it is not to be confused with the Data Protection Act 1998. The differen ...

provisions. Among other changes, it requires all web services to store the user data of Russian citizens on servers within the country. Sites which did not comply with this requirement by September 2016 may be added to the internet blacklist. Since August 2014, the law requires operators of free

hotspots (e.g. in restaurants, libraries, cafes etc.) to collect personal details of all users, identify them using passports, and store the data. The "

Yarovaya law The Yarovaya law (in Russian: Закон Яровой, transliteration: ''Zakon Jarovoy''), also Yarovaya package/bag, is a set of two Russian federal bills, 374-FZ and 375-FZ, passed in 2016. The bills amend previous counter-terrorism laws and ...

" (passed July 2016) is a package of several legislative amendments which include extensions to data retention. Among other changes, it requires telecom operators to store recordings of phone conversations, text messages and users' internet traffic for up to 6 months, as well as metadata for up to 3 years. This data as well as "all other information necessary" is available to authorities on request and without a court order. As of January 2018, companies registered in Russia as "organizers of information dissemination", such as online messaging applications, will not be permitted to allow unidentified users.

Mass media

The federal telecommunications regulator ''Roskomnadzor'' can issue warnings to the editorial board of mass media and websites registered as mass media concerning "abuse of mass media freedom." According to the "Law on Mass Media", such abuse can include "extremist" content, information on

recreational drug use Recreational drug use indicates the use of one or more psychoactive drugs to induce an altered state of consciousness either for pleasure or for some other casual purpose or pastime by modifying the perceptions and emotions of the user. When a ...

, the propagation of cruelty and violence, as well as obscene language. If a media outlet receives two warnings within a year, ''Roskomnadzor'' can request a court order shutting down the media outlet entirely.

Internet blacklist

Legislation

In July 2012, Russia's

State Duma The State Duma (russian: Госуда́рственная ду́ма, r=Gosudárstvennaja dúma), commonly abbreviated in Russian as Gosduma ( rus, Госду́ма), is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, while the upper house ...

passed a law requiring the establishment of an Internet

blacklist Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist (or black list) of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list. If someone is on a blacklist, t ...

. The law took effect on 1 November 2012. The blacklist Is administered by the

(Roskomnadzor) and the

Federal Drug Control Service of Russia Federal or foederal (archaic) may refer to: Politics General *Federal monarchy, a federation of monarchies *Federation, or ''Federal state'' (federal system), a type of government characterized by both a central (federal) government and states or ...

. At the time of introduction the list was described as a means for the protection of children from harmful content; particularly content which glorifies drug usage, advocates suicide or describes suicide methods, or contains child pornography. In 2013 legislative amendments allowed the blocking of content "suspected in extremism", "calling for illegal meetings", "inciting hatred" and any other actions "violating the established order". This content can be blocked without a court order by the office of the Prosecutor General. In July 2017,

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...

signed a bill, which took effect 1 November 2017, which bans all software and websites related to circumventing internet filtering in Russia, including

s and

Virtual private network A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The be ...

(VPN) services which do not implement the blacklist, and instructional material on how to do so. A number of individual instances of censorship were taken by Russian citizens to the

(Vladimir Kharitonov v. Russia, OOO Flavus and Others v. Russia, Engels v. Russia) and in 2020 ruled that actions of Russian law enforcement in these cases was in clear violation of articles 10 and 13 of the

European Convention on Human Rights The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR; formally the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms) is an international convention to protect human rights and political freedoms in Europe. Drafted in 1950 by t ...

Implementation

The implementation of the blacklist is outlined in a

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

decree issued in October 2012. ''Roskomnadzor'' offers a website where users can check to see whether a given URL or IP address is in the blacklist, and can also report websites which contain prohibited materials to the authorities. After a submission is verified, Roskomnadzor will inform the website's owner and hosting provider. If the material is not removed within three days, the website will be added to the blacklist, and all Russian

ISPs An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

must block it. The full content of the blacklist initially was not available to the general public, although soon after it was implemented, a leaked list of blacklisted websites was published by a

LiveJournal LiveJournal (russian: Живой Журнал), stylised as LiVEJOURNAL, is a Russian-owned social networking service where users can keep a blog, journal, or diary. American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal on April 15, 1999, as ...

user on 12 November 2012. The searchable blacklist interface was made available as a full list by activists. As of July 2017 it includes over 70,000 entries.

Reaction

criticized the procedure by which entries are added to the blacklist as "extremely opaque", and viewed it as part of an attack on the freedom of information in Russia. In 2012, when the banned content only included child pornography, drugs and suicide, the human rights activists have expressed fear that the blacklist may be used to censor democracy-oriented websites (which indeed happened the next year). And a

Lenta.ru ''Lenta.ru'' (russian: Лента.Ру; stylised as LƐNTA.RU) is a Russian-language online newspaper. Based in Moscow, it is owned by Rambler Media Group. In 2013, the Alexander Mamut-owned companies "SUP Media" and "Rambler-Afisha" merged to ...

editorial noted that the criteria for prohibited content are so broad that even the website of the ruling

United Russia United Russia ( rus, Единая Россия, Yedinaya Rossiya, (j)ɪˈdʲinəjə rɐˈsʲijə) is a Conservatism in Russia, Russian conservative List of political parties in Russia, political party. As the largest party in Russia, it hold ...

party could in theory be blacklisted. However, the idea was at that time generally supported by the Russian public: in a September 2012

Levada Center The Levada Center is a Russian independent, nongovernmental polling and sociological research organization. It is named after its founder, the first Russian professor of sociology Yuri Levada (1930–2006). The center traces back its history to ...

survey, 63% of respondents had expressed support for "

Internet censorship Internet censorship is the legal control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the Internet. Censorship is most often applied to specific internet domains (such as Wikipedia.org) but exceptionally may extend to all Inte ...

", though any kind of censorship is banned under the Constitution of Russia. The

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ci ...

has criticized the blacklist, stating: "EFF is profoundly opposed to government censorship of the Internet, which violates its citizens right to freedom of expression... We are especially concerned about the censorship of independent news and opposing political views, which are essential to a thriving civil society. Russians who wish to circumvent government censorship can continue to read these websites via the

Tor Browser Tor, short for The Onion Router, is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more than seven thousand relays, to conc ...

Instances of censorship

A number of websites maintain lists of websites currently blocked in Russia, based on different sources of information.

George Soros blocked

President Vladimir Putin signed the law in late 2013 about procedure for the

Prosecutor General of Russia The Prosecutor General of Russia (also Attorney General of Russia, russian: Генеральный прокурор Российской Федерации, Generalʹnyy prokuror Rossiyskoy Federatsii) heads the system of official prosecution i ...

and Prosecutor General's Office to decide which websites may be blocked arbitrarily. Then the Russian Government passed the law about undesirable organizations in 2015, after which all suspected 'undesirable organizations' websites could also be arbitrarily blocked by the Prosecutor General's Office. After that, the 'undesirable' websites of philanthropist

George Soros George Soros ( name written in eastern order), (born György Schwartz, August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American businessman and philanthropist. , he had a net worth of US$8.6 billion, Note that this site is updated daily. having donated mo ...

and a number of other were blocked in Russia.

The German Marshall Fund

The Russian government announced that the website of a US-based think tank, The

German Marshall Fund The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) is a nonpartisan American public policy think tank that seeks to promote cooperation and understanding between North America and the European Union. Founded in 1972 through a gift from the We ...

, was to be blocked on March 11, 2018, without any explanation. In total, 22 undesirable organizations were blocked between 2015 and 2020, including

Open Russia Open Russia (russian: Открытая Россия; ''Otkrytaya Rossiya'') is a political organisation founded by the exiled Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky with the shareholders of his firm, Yukos (a company closed in 2006). Khodorkovsky ...

, the

National Endowment for Democracy The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is an organization in the United States that was founded in 1983 for promoting democracy in other countries by promoting political and economic institutions such as political groups, trade unions, ...

, the

Open Society Foundations Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a Grant (money), grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the wo ...

, the U.S. Russia Foundation for Economic Advancement and the Rule of Law, Germany's European Platform for Democratic Elections, Lithuania's International Elections Study Center,

Atlantic Council The Atlantic Council is an American think tank in the field of international affairs, favoring Atlanticism, founded in 1961. It manages sixteen regional centers and functional programs related to international security and global economic prosp ...

and the like.

Smart Voting

In September 2021, ahead of the State Duma elections, several actions were taken to suppress

Smart Voting Smart Voting ( rus, Умное голосование, Umnoye golosovaniye) is a tactical voting strategy put forward by the team of Alexei Navalny with the aim of depriving the ruling United Russia party of votes in regional and federal electi ...

website and mobile app, which promoted opposition candidates in the election. A

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from others ...

on "Smart Voting" was secured by an agricultural company, Woolintertrade, which successfully received an injunction against Google and Yandex requiring them to censor queries for the string. Roskomnadzor intensified use of TSPUs in what was interpreted as an attempt to suppress use of the website, including attempts to throttle IP addresses associated with Google services such as

Google App Engine Google App Engine (often referred to as GAE or simply App Engine) is a cloud computing platform as a service for developing and hosting web applications in Google-managed data centers. Applications are sandboxed and run across multiple servers. ...

, and added Smart Voting's URLs to its blacklist as "extremist" materials, as they were classified as a continuation of the operations of the "extremist"

Anti-Corruption Foundation The Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF or FBK; russian: Фонд борьбы с коррупцией (ФБК), Fond borby s korruptsiyey (FBK), Foundation for combating corruption) is a non-profit organization established in 2011 by Russian opposit ...

. The targeting of

Google Public DNS Google Public DNS is a Domain Name System (DNS) service offered to Internet users worldwide by Google. It functions as a recursive name server. Google Public DNS was announced on December 3, 2009, in an effort described as "making the web faster ...

led to severe connectivity problems with various services, including the Central Bank of Russia. Roskomnadzor ordered Apple and Google to remove Smart Voting-related materials from their platforms, threatening the companies with fines for election interference. The companies complied with the order, which also included a brief block of

Google Docs Google Docs is an online word processor included as part of the free, web-based Google Docs Editors suite offered by Google, which also includes: Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Drawings, Google Forms, Google Sites and Google Keep. Google Do ...

when Navalny published Smart Voting materials on the platform, and removal of videos containing the material on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

. Messaging service

censored a

chatbot A chatbot or chatterbot is a Software agent, software application used to conduct an on-line chat conversation via text or Speech synthesis, text-to-speech, in lieu of providing direct contact with a live human agent. Designed to convincingly si ...

tied to Smart Voting from its platform, stating that it was required to comply in order to comply with the terms of service of Apple and Google's app stores.

Russian invasion of Ukraine

Internet censorship in Russia intensified in late-February 2022 amid the country's

...

, due to Roskomnadzor orders and federal laws prohibiting the dissemination of

dissent Dissent is an opinion, philosophy or sentiment of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or policy enforced under the authority of a government, political party or other entity or individual. A dissenting person may be referred to as ...

and "knowingly false" information regarding the Russian military—which includes any materials and reporting that does not align with official government information and statements. These orders have applied primarily to foreign (such as

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...

Deutsche Welle Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave" in English), abbreviated to DW, is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite television service con ...

RFE/RL Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government funded organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, and the Middle East where it says tha ...

Voice of America Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content ...

, and the Ukraine Ministry of Internal Affairs-run Look for Your Own) and independent (such as

Current Time TV Current Time TV () is a Russian-language television channel with editorial office in Prague, created by the US organisations Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America. The channel – via RFE/RL – is funded through grants ...

Interfax Interfax (russian: Интерфакс) is a Russian news agency. The agency is owned by Interfax News Agency joint-stock company and is headquartered in Moscow. History As the first non-governmental channel of political and economic informatio ...

, and

Meduza ''Meduza'' ( rus, Медуза, t=jellyfish) is a Russian- and English-language independent news website, headquartered in Riga. It was founded in 2014 by a group of former employees of the then-independent ''Lenta.ru'' news website. Free mob ...

) media outlets. Facebook and Twitter were also ordered blocked in retaliation for their censorship of state-owned media outlets such as RT and

Sputnik Sputnik 1 (; see § Etymology) was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program. It sent a radio signal back to Earth for t ...

. On 11 March 2022, Belarusian political police

GUBOPiK The Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption of the MVD of the Republic of Belarus, abbreviated ГУБОПиК (GUBOPiK), be, Галоўнае ўпраўленне па барацьбе з арганізаванай злач ...

arrested and detained Mark Bernstein, a Minsk-based Russian Wikipedia editor who was editing the article about the invasion, accusing him of the "spread of anti-Russian materials" and of violating Russian "fake news" law. In April–July 2022, the Russian authorities put several Wikipedia articles on their list of forbidden sites, and then ordered search engines to mark Wikipedia as a violator of Russian laws. Russian authorities have blocked or removed about 138,000 websites since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Notes

References

External links

Official website of the Russian Department of Monitoring of Communications, Information technologies, and mass Communications (ROSKOMNADZOR)

Normative acts. The website of the Russian Department of Monitoring of Communications, Information technologies, and mass Communications (ROSKOMNADZOR) accessed September 30, 2020
* {{Europe in topic, Internet censorship in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

Law of Russia