Putin widens effort to control Russia's internet

Boston Globe

2 days ago

The idea, experts say, is to migrate more Russians from an open internet dominated by the products of Western tech giants to a censored online ecosystem, where Russians primarily use software under the gaze and influence of the state. The effort has advanced significantly amid wartime repression, but it is unclear how far it will go.
'The goal here is absolute control,' said Anastasiia Kruope, a researcher at Human Rights Watch who wrote a recent report on declining Russian internet freedoms.
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The Kremlin wants to control not only the information available online but also where and how internet traffic flows, Kruope said, so the Russian internet can function in isolation and be switched on and off at will. Russia's technical capabilities for clamping down are improving, she added.
'They are not perfect,' Kruope said. 'They are not nearly at the level they would like them to be. But they are getting better, and this is the reason to start paying attention.'
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Unlike China, where users have been restricted since the dawn of the internet, Russia long boasted one of the most open and freewheeling environments anywhere online. Operating with virtually no barriers, millions of Russians flocked to Western tech platforms, posted critical news, and freely expressed their thoughts on the web.
The Kremlin began to see that freedom as a threat, particularly after the rise of opposition activist Alexei Navalny, who died in prison last year. His exposes of the Putin elite, initially publicized in Live Journal blog posts and later in popular YouTube videos, gave him millions of followers online and the power to mobilize mass protests on the street.
Since the first decade of Putin's rule, Moscow had been articulating a vision for what it called a 'sovereign' internet that would sever Russia as much as possible from the rest of the online world and strip power from foreign tech firms, which didn't always give in to the Kremlin's demands.
But Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 gave the government the opportunity to accelerate the plan.
On the eve of the invasion, the state indirectly took over VK, the country's biggest social network, harnessing a platform with millions of existing users to popularize Russian alternatives to Western tech products. The son of Putin's powerful first deputy chief of staff, Sergei V. Kiriyenko, was tapped to run the company.
Moscow banned Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter outright and took steps that caused TikTok to disable functions in Russia. Lawmakers passed Draconian laws stifling free expression in the streets and online.
Last year, after building out a video-streaming service on VK, Russia began throttling YouTube, pushing users toward the domestic alternative, though with mixed success.
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Now, with the introduction of MAX, authorities have signaled they may take aim at foreign messaging apps, in particular WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta and counts nearly 100 million monthly users in Russia. Telegram could be a target as well.
Anton V. Gorelkin, deputy head of the information technology committee in Russia's lower house of parliament, said last month that WhatsApp should 'prepare to leave the Russian market.' He said Russians would replace the app with MAX.
At an economic forum in June, Gorelkin also called Telegram, based in the United Arab Emirates and owned by Russian-born internet entrepreneur Pavel Durov, 'an entity that worries the state.' But he said previously that the app would not be banned.
'I am very afraid that other methods of communication are going to be blocked,' said Mikhail Klimarev, head of the Internet Protection Society, an exiled Russian digital-rights group.
Beyond messaging, Telegram allows Russians access to content from exiled journalists, activists, and artists, who post in channels. At the same time, the Kremlin uses Telegram to distribute its own propaganda, giving the app a chance of survival. Klimarev said a Telegram blockage would devastate the Russian internet.
'Russia will turn into Mordor,' he said, referring to the dark realm ruled by evil in the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Through MAX, Russian officials are hoping to create their own version of China's WeChat, an app that remains indispensable for millions of Chinese despite being both censored and monitored.
Apart from messaging and uploading posts, WeChat users can pay utility bills, book train tickets, make payments for goods and services, apply for marriage licenses, and in some places even file for divorce.
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Moscow is following that model. A new law says government services must be offered through MAX. Officials across all levels of Russian government are being told to install the app. Already, local authorities have been testing the use of MAX by schools and signaling that teachers will be required to use it to communicate with students and parents.
'You need to bring it into the daily life of people to the extent that you cannot avoid this app anymore,' said Philipp Dietrich, an analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations.
'The whole point of doing this is the same reason China is doing WeChat: the more information you can gather against your citizens, the better,' Dietrich added.
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