Russia: New Initiatives Indicate Government’s Fear of the New Media · Global Voices
Alexey Sidorenko

The Russian government gets more and more involved in the restructuring of the national cyberspace. On the one hand, it proposes new initiatives to overcome the digital divide [EN], while on the other hand, it extends its presence, and, more importantly, its repressive power, online.
Two latest cases, originating from different department of the government (Roskomnadzor and the Federal Security Service (FSB)), illustrate the government's ambition to control the cyberspace.
Locked & Chained, photo by flickr-user .Bala
Moderating online newspapers
The first case relates to moderating online comments on different news sites. This practice has been mainly conducted by Roskomnadzor, a Russian online regulatory body. The latest decision [EN] of the Supreme Court makes online media (to avoid being confused with blogs, online media outlets have to be registered at the Ministry of Telecommunications and have almost the same rights and responsibilities  as conventional forms of media) not responsible for the comments posted on online forums.  At the same time, the ruling gives the authority to Roskomnadzor to flag certain comments as “inappropriate.” If a news outlet fails to delete the flagged online comments, Roskomnadzor may shut down the website.
On June 23, 2010, the organization issued [RUS] its first legal warning [RUS] to apn.ru for failing to delete a flagged comment within one day. Bloggers were surprised [RUS] by this action for two reasons: first, Roskomnadzor contacted the owner via e-mail, and, second, it is not clear who it is up to to decide how fast the comment should be deleted.
As a result, this practice makes online conversation increasingly problematic. One of the issues with e-mail notifications from the government agency is that it should be signed with a special e-signature, which the original letter probably lacked.
Warrior127 commented on the case:
Конечно это все цирк и письмо по электронеке не может являться официальным требованием, но, сайты СМИ — это отдельная песня. Выглядит все это — как прощупывание почвы, удастся или нет… ведь если сейчас никто не начнет открыто критиковать Роскомнадзор за данные действия — далее это очень удобный механизм для закрывания «неудобных» СМИ, со стороны Роскомнадзора ставиться ГОСТовая железка с крутящимся на ней mail сервером, далее из нее выгружается отчет, что письмо с требованием об удалении комментария было отправлено тогда-то, отчет о доставке и прочтении, и это будет являться официальными доказательствами в судах. Вот так на наших глазах зарождается новый способ регулирования оппозиционных СМИ.
Amendments to the IT legislation
Another case is a number of amendments (a full list is available here [RUS]) proposed by the FSB (Federal Security Service) to the law “On information, informatisation and privacy”. According to Vedomosti.ru, the FSB proposed the following measures to control the Internet:
Alexander Panov, an executive partner of Hosting Community, an association of hosting providers that has recently signed [EN] the “Declaration of the Providers”, argues [RUS] that all these measures already existed and were present in the specialized laws (e.g., “On Police” and “On Telecommunications”).
Bloggers were quite skeptical about the technology that would enforce these measures (especially blocking websites), but agreed on the ‘escapist’ solution of extending government influence. Blogger gradosfera.com wrote:
…Уедут отсюда все – для начала на западный хостинг и в зоны *com, *org, *net и прочие – им там письма из прокуратуры по-барабану.
Komarov wrote:
ну хорошо, ФСБ добился своего – больше я ни одного сайта в зоне .ru не зарегистрирую!
и хостинги буду покупать только в Америке и Грузии! И через провайдера буду делать только одно соединение – с помощью VPN до Америки, а оттуда уже куда хочу.
алёё, ФСБ!! интернет – это не телефонная сеть, его надо либо совсем закрывать, либо не трогать!
Whatever the bloggers’ strategies would be if the amendments pass, the whole direction to more power by the authorities online is extremely disturbing. While it is evident that the aforementioned measures indicate the preparations for the 2011-2012 election cycle, they also indicate the government's fear of the power of the new media.