In the mid-nineteen-sixties, Brezhnev’s Soviet Union introduced a law aimed at stifling ideological dissent. Article 190, Part 1 of the Soviet Criminal Code criminalized “the dissemination of the intentionally false insinuations defiling the Soviet state and social order.” The post-Stalin regime was not the sort of dictatorship that exterminated its own citizens, but it insisted that public expression be in full compliance with the Communist Party line. It was not uncommon for people to be sentenced to years in work camps for “disseminating” three or four copies of underground literature.
In the Soviet Union, dissemination was constrained by the limited capacity of the typewriter, the restricted use of copy machines, and the clandestine distribution of photocopies—factors that also remind us of the courage of those who distributed literature anyway, risking their freedom. Today, in an age of modern communication, anyone with a computer and an Internet connection has, in theory, unlimited dissemination capacity. And yet, almost half a century after the introduction of Article 190 and almost a quarter century after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Putin’s regime is reviving the law in spirit, rapidly moving Russia toward isolationism and intolerance of any form of free expression—from civic activism to nongovernment media.
In a meeting with government loyalists this week, Putin called the Internet a “C.I.A. project” that has “evolved in this manner”—that is, with interests opposed to Russia’s—ever since its creation. (Though the technical foundation of what became the Internet was laid with the help of the U.S. government, it has long since slipped from American, or any other government’s, possession.) Until recently, it seemed as though the very existence of the World Wide Web was a safeguard against a major crackdown on mass communication by governments. Even if traditional media has come under government pressure, the thinking went in Russia, the Internet remained a realm of free public exchange. But free exchange is the very reason Putin sees the Internet as a major threat.
Putin’s ominous statement followed a continuous line of measures—laws, bills, and initiatives—aimed at restricting online communication in Russia. One recently passed law enables the government to block Web sites without a court ruling (a few have already been blocked). Another bill mandates that bloggers with more than three thousand followers bear the same legal responsibility as mass-media companies, meaning, for example, that such bloggers can be fined if they post inaccurate information. In the Russian legal environment, where court rulings in politically sensitive cases are commonly guided by instructions from, or simple loyalty to, the Kremlin, any unwelcome information will be easily categorized as “inaccurate.” A municipal legislator in Moscow expressed concern that “the special services cannot establish full control over bloggers.” She was especially outraged by bloggers who have voiced doubts over the Kremlin’s policy in Crimea following Russia’s annexation of the peninsula. The city legislature has suggested that such doubts be treated as provocative and “extremist,” a criminal offense commonly used against civic activists and protesters.
Last month, Galina Timchenko, the editor of the news and analysis Web site lenta.ru, was fired by the owner. (David Remnick wrote about that case.) In a matter of just a few years, she had turned lenta.ru into the most popular online source of political news in Russia—a highly effective dissemination tool—and perhaps for this very reason a dangerous asset for its owner. Timchenko was replaced by someone seen as more loyal to the government. (Many members of the lenta.ru editorial staff quit in protest.)
Russia’s largest social network, VKontakte, had been launched in 2006 by Pavel Durov, sometimes referred to as Russia’s Mark Zuckerberg. After what appears to have been a forced sale of his package to business structures loyal to the Kremlin, Durov left Russia; he has said that he has no plans to go back. Another recent initiative requires that foreign social-media Web sites, such as Google or Facebook, keep servers physically based in Russia and save all the information about their users for at least six months.
While he condemned the Internet for being essentially hostile to Russia, Putin also criticized Yandex, the Russian search engine, for being registered in the Netherlands, “not only for the taxation purposes but for other reasons, as well.” Yandex, like VKontakte, should be an Internet success story. Launched by two Russian friends in the nineties, Yandex prides itself on having more traffic in Russia than Google—an achievement few national search engines can boast. But, in Putin’s current isolationist world view, Yandex is not nationalist enough: when the company was staring out, “they, too, were pressured,” Putin said at the same meeting, claiming that they were told “they had to have a certain number of Americans and a certain number of Europeans in their governing bodies, and they had to agree with that.” (In a statement issued in response, Yandex said that its first investment was from international funds and investors, but “this is a common thing for any Internet startup in any country.”)
Amid the alarm caused by Putin’s reference to the Internet as a C.I.A. anti-Russian tool, @Euromaidan, a Twitter feed set up by Ukrainian activists, posted a photo of Allen Dulles. This was a joke with a history: Dulles, the C.I.A.’s director during the early Cold War, is commonly evoked by anti-Western forces in Russia as the mastermind behind the destruction of the Soviet Union. The photo was accompanied by the following lines: “We will need 54 years to prepare Euromaidan in Ukraine. To this end we will need to create social networks, And in order to do that we will need to create the Internet. And then we will proceed to develop it in this manner.”
Russia’s expansionist and pugnacious stance has precipitated a flight of capital that, even according to Kremlin officials, may reach a hundred billion dollars this year; the Russian economy is entering a recession. After Putin’s statement, Yandex shares lost five per cent. Putin’s effort to protect Russia from pernicious Western influence will also affect the Internet as we know it. “It will facilitate the introduction of borders in the Internet, and lead to its ‘Balkanization,’ ” Andrey Soldatov, a Russian Internet expert, told me in an e-mail. Soldatov wrote recently that “One should keep in mind that Russia has already provided a cohesive, detailed and well thought-out blueprint for turning the Internet into a collection of national intranets.”
With the annexation of Crimea, Putin is firmly set on an anti-Western and isolationist course, and on the goal of suppressing signs of disloyalty. He does not seem to care about the costs to Russia’s development in general—or its place in the tech industry. The days of clandestinely distributed carbon copies may not be as distant as they seem.
Photograph: Alexey Druzhinyn/RIA Novosti/Kremlin Pool/EPA
