Pro-government sites are becoming more influential

For years, the Kremlin has ignored the Internet, increasing control over traditional media such as television and newspapers. Now the situation has changed: the Kremlin and its supporters are beginning to pay attention to cyberspace, which remains the last place for critical messages and lively discussions in the degenerating public sphere of Russian society.

Vladimir Putin’s like-minded people create pro-government news resources and pop culture sites, while at the same time buying recognized online strongholds of independent journalism. They cultivate a network of friendly bloggers to spread propaganda around the team. And there was talk of creating a new Russian computer network, which would be relatively independent of the “big” Internet and which would be easier for the authorities to control.

“The attractiveness of the Internet as a free platform for free people has already begun to disappear,” says Iosif Dzyaloshinsky, a media expert, professor at the Higher School of Economics.

Putin addressed the issue of Internet censorship during a nationwide speech on radio and television this month. “In the Russian Federation, there is no control over the World Wide Web, the Russian segment of the Internet,” Putin said. “I think this is not very promising from the point of view of a technological solution to this problem in this area.”
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“Of course, in this environment, as well as in other environments, we must think about the fact that Russian laws are respected, that child pornography is not distributed, that financial crimes are not committed in this environment,” he continued. - But this is a matter of law enforcement. Total control and the work of law enforcement agencies are still different things. ”

Many people here [in Russia] say that in their opinion Putin did not think about the free Internet until Internet penetration reached a high level. Back in 2002, 8% of adult Russians used the Network, and now their number has grown to 25%, so now cyberspace has begun to attract more and more attention from the authorities.

Some Russian experts say that 2004 was a turning point, when blogs and online publications uncontrolled by the authorities helped to change the political picture of the presidential elections in Ukraine after the pro-Kremlin candidate was declared the winner. After street protests in Kiev, repeated elections were announced, in which a pro-Western candidate was elected president.

Today, the Kremlin already has its own online forces and is fully prepared for the start of the street struggle.

On April 14, the opposition held a march in the center of Moscow, in which hundreds of people took part; police detained at least 170 people, including the leader, chess star, Garry Kasparov.

Pavel Danilin, a 30-year-old pro-Putin blogger, whose online avatar is a sinister robot from the movie “Terminator,” works for a political consulting company loyal to the Kremlin. He says that his team, including members of the youth movement “Young Guard,” immediately began posting blog entries about a small pro-Kremlin march that took place simultaneously.

They put links to each other, so that soon the records of the pro-Kremlin march ousted messages about the opposition rally from the list of the most popular entries in Yandex.Blogs.

“We worked great,” says Danilin.

In a large online article a year ago [ in fact, the article was written in 2003 - approx. per. ] Three Russian human rights activists cited evidence that the harsh, rude, and uniform pro-Kremlin ideology that blogs and chat are permeated with can only be the result of a coordinated campaign.

Putin’s supporters understand that the Internet is a threat to the status quo in Russia. After all, the authorities have retained strictly controlled television from Soviet times in order to influence the public opinion of people in a vast territory in 11 time zones.

“You are watching the first channel or the second channel and you can see only good news about Russia,” says Andrei Osipov, the 26-year-old editor of the site of the pro-Kremlin movement Nashi, “the Internet is a freer media outlet, and there is competition between state and opposition organizations. ”

The Kremlin is also increasingly trying to get closer to private online resources that bring up new ideals of life in modern Russia, different from pro-Putin consumerism and uncompromising.

The main champion of these ideals is 28-year-old businessman Konstantin Rykov. The pearl of his media empire is the Vzglyad website created two years ago: a business newspaper with a serious news department, which publishes articles about Kremlin policies, with a glossy application that describes luxury cars and interior design. Studies put "The View" in the top five most popular news sites Runet.

“Rykov created a good business on the state's desire to invest in ideology,” says Anton Nosik, a Russian Internet pioneer working for Sup. Anton Nosik also added that the private financing of Rykov’s projects was organized by Vladislav Surkov, Putin’s political adviser on domestic issues.

Kremlin officials deny any involvement in this: “It’s a constant habit of looking for the Kremlin’s hand in any popular and successful business,” Russian Deputy Dmitry Peskov answers when asked about Rykovsky’s millions. “In reality, this is not so.”

Rykov himself in an interview with the Washington Post did not want to comment on information about his investors, but Surkov’s portrait in a frame hangs over his desk. In the December parliamentary elections, Rykov will run for parliament as a candidate from the United Russia party.

“The newspaper“ Vzglyad ”from the very beginning created an impression of state publications about itself,” says Rykov. “And in terms of business and advertising sales, this is very good.”

Supporters of the Kremlin also began to buy some of the independent companies, which at one time helped turn the Internet into a bastion of freedom of speech in Russia. For example, Gazeta.ru , the country's most respected online newspaper for a long time, was sold in December last year to an oligarch loyal to Putin.

Last October, the rights to develop the Russian-speaking segment of LiveJournal, the most popular blog portal in Russia, were sold to Sup, owned by Alexander Mamut, another tycoon with Kremlin connections.

“Mr. Rykov is pro-Kremlin, Mamut and Sup are pro-Kremlin. All social networks are bought up by pro-Kremlin people. Of course, everything is in order, ”says Ruslan Paushu (goblin_gaga), a popular Russian blogger who also works for Rykov.

So far, Gazeta.ru continues to publish critical articles about the Kremlin’s policies, and so far there have been no reports of any censorship on blogs by Soup, but as the government begins to awaken the potential of the Internet, many critics of Putin are getting nervous.

Prosecutors have already targeted blogs and online chat rooms for criminal prosecution, inciting criminal charges of defamation or extremism against users who criticize Putin or other officials. Most of these incidents occurred outside of Moscow, and government officials deny that they received a signal to launch a wide-ranging campaign to control the Internet.

“Personally, I am against the creation and adaptation of a special law that would regulate the Internet,” said Leonid Reiman, the Minister of Information Technology and Communications. “The Internet has always developed as a free environment, and it should remain so.”

But in July, Putin, at a meeting with his Security Council, outlined plans for Russia to become a global information leader by 2015. Russian news media reported that these plans include the creation of a new network, separate from the Internet, which will be open only to the former Soviet republics.

“Speaking directly, we need to fight for control over the key [water mains] nodes,” said Gleb Pavlovsky, the Kremlin’s chief political consultant, in an interview. “We need to fight for the central networks and for the segments of the audience they control.”

Wolfgang Kleinwaechter, special advisor to the chairman of the Internet Governance Forum at the United Nations, has information that some Russian officials are talking about creating a separate Internet with Cyrillic domains, and are starting to learn Chinese experience.

Peskov said that the “Russian Internet” is currently only in the study phase, and added that he does not know whether this idea has advanced further than just thinking out loud. “This does not mean getting rid of the global network,” he said. This is a discussion about creating add-ons. ”

At the moment, both supporters and critics of Putin see something unusual in the actions of the Kremlin: a contest on more or less equal conditions with their opponents.

“Of course, there is a dark side, where words like“ ban ”or“ restrict ”still sound,” says Marat Gelman, who worked as a political consultant in the Kremlin until 2004. - But what really happens between the web and the authorities is very good. Yes, they are trying to play this game. ”

Such a strategy seems to be a clear contrast to the tactics Putin used on the NTV independent television network, pursuing it through lawsuits and armed raids.

Blogger Marina Litvinovich, who previously worked for the Kremlin’s political strategist Pavlovsky, and now works for Kasparov’s United Civil Front , says she’s satisfied with the authorities ’approach to the Internet, because he makes Putin’s supporters respond to criticism, not just ignore it.

Litvinovich believes that as the Kremlin continues to consolidate political power in its hands, it has less and less incentive to engage in online propaganda. “And now they don’t really need a particularly creative approach,” she adds.