Russian Internet Censorship Law Passed

Eggy Baby!

This hasn't really been in the news, but the Russian Duma passed (by a vast majority) a new law which the Russian government says is aimed at reducing sites dedicated to child pornography, suicide culture or extremism.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/11/russia-internet-censorship?newsfeed=true

The Russian-language Wikipedia went dark on Tuesday in protests at the bill (reminded me a lot of SOPA). The widespread belief among opposition activists is that it is an attempt to destroy dissent on the vast and unregulated internet scene in Russia. However;

MPs removed vague language that would allow any website with "bad content" to be shut down, according to Duma deputy Ilya Ponomaryov, an opposition activist who supported the bill.

If I recall (I'll have to check again), 440 out of the 450 deputies in the Duma supported the bill. Edinaya Rossiya hold just over 50% of the Duma. That means broad support was also found from the Liberal Democrats, Communists and A Just Russia.

Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov told a news conference that the law needed more work but should not interfere with freedom of information.

"We support the idea of the law as a whole in what concerns the need to provide the means for fighting phenomena such as child pornography. At the same time, we find that the proposed mechanisms are not entirely complete," he said.

"The fight against child pornography must not create problems with the main principle of the Internet - open access to information," he added.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-07-11/business/sns-rt-us-russia-internet-lawbre86a149-20120711_1_internet-control-new-law-united-russia

Time will tell if this was their motive.

I haven't read the text yet (it doesn't seem to be up and even then it would probably be in Cyrillic) but opposition activists are already slamming it as too vague and too easily manipulated for censorship purposes.

Essentially the bill creates a federal blacklist for sites containing questionable content.


Personally, I believe such a law would be excellent and beneficial to Russia if it was not abused. However, rule of law in Russia must be enforced if the country is to prosper. What is worrying is that there was no law prohibiting extremist content already in Russia, especially with the amount of suffering caused by fundamentalism there. I also believe the opposition are overreacting. Much like how SOPA was regarded as the beginning of a police state by some. If I recall, the extremist Kavkaz Center was briefly censored in the past.

(Note: no Putinbashing/Nashibashing would be appreciated ["Putinhitler kills Georgian babies!!1" "Nashi is Putinjugend!!!!1" etc.] because that just gets old after the millionth time. Cheers!)

EDIT: Actually I believe that the passing of the bill was unanimous.

opti0nal

Eggy Baby! wrote: »

This hasn't really been in the news, but the Russian Duma passed (by a vast majority) a new law which the Russian government says is aimed at reducing sites dedicated to child pornography, suicide culture or extremism.

Seems similar to measures already applied in Australia and the UK. I understand Irish authorities are planning to do similar.

Do the Russians have advanced data retention laws such as we have here?

who the fug

opti0nal wrote: »

Seems similar to measures already applied in Australia and the UK. I understand Irish authorities are planning to do similar.

Do the Russians have advanced data retention laws such as we have here?

From what I have read about the UK law, it is more being seen to do something than actually doing anything.

Opt in to watch porn , bet the kids crack that with a week.

opti0nal

who the fug wrote: »

From what I have read about the UK law, it is more being seen to do something than actually doing anything.

Opt in to watch porn , bet the kids crack that with a week.

The UK already has blocking of sites determined by the IWF. The 'opt-in' for porn campaign is a separate thing, led by the tabloid press.

Blocking identified sites based on URL or IP address will be found to be useless, so this leads naturally to deep-packet inspection and ongoing surveillance of all Internet traffic.

There's been a recent case in the UK where someone was convicted of 'obscene publication' based on the content of private IM messages.

The Russians may actually be behind the west when it comes to Internet censorship and surveillance.

who the fug

opti0nal wrote: »

The UK already has blocking of sites determined by the IWF. The 'opt-in' for porn campaign is a separate thing, led by the tabloid press.

Blocking identified sites based on URL or IP address will be found to be useless, so this leads naturally to deep-packet inspection and ongoing surveillance of all Internet traffic.

There's been a recent case in the UK where someone was convicted of 'obscene publication' based on the content of private IM messages.

The Russians may actually be behind the west when it comes to Internet censorship and surveillance.

Thanks for the clarification, first I have heard of the IWF.

opti0nal

who the fug wrote: »

Thanks for the clarification, first I have heard of the IWF.

From WiKi

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is a non-governmental charitable body based in the United Kingdom. It states that its remit is "to minimise the availability of 'potentially criminal' Internet content, ...
The IWF operates in informal partnership with the police, government, public, and Internet service providers. Originally formed to police suspected child pornography online, the IWF's remit was later expanded to cover criminally obscene material.

I think stories about internet censorship and surveillance in Russia/China etc distract from what's going on closer to home.

KyussBishop

The law there in Russia is a perfect template for what will happen (and is happening) here and elsewhere in Europe in the next decade or two.

Lets take a quick look at this:
Is the list of censored websites secret?

If yes: Any site, can be corruptly placed on the blacklist with absolutely no oversight, for any reason (likely to be used to stifle political opponents in Russia).
If no: Oh look, a public list of website URL's pointing people to all the child porn on the internet! Coupled with the ease with which the blocking can be bypassed, it just makes the child porn easier to find; that's not going to stay public long is it?

So whatever way you look at it, it's either going to exacerbate the problem it's trying to solve (showing people where to find the porn), or open up carte blanche unaccountable internet censorship.

Hell, it's even advantageous for them to make the blacklist public, because then they can say "people are using these proxy sites and tools [e.g. Tor] to get around censorship, we must block these sites/tools".
Whatever way you look at it, it's going down the path to total control of the Internet, because the censorship can never be effective unless you lock everything down.


We already have one ISP in Ireland with a blacklist (Eircom), forced upon them by the recent injunction law to block The Pirate Bay, and we are going to find other ISP's brought into line as well.
If that censorship successfully takes hold on other ISP's, it's only a matter of time really before the censorship is expanded to cover lots of other things (starting with child porn), and then gets centralized into a government controlled blacklist.


Once you allow any censorship (e.g. of torrent sites), you don't have any credible arguments left against expanding that censorship, because the argument "we censor 'x', why do we not censor worse content 'y' as well?" will always easily beat whatever argument you can make in the political arena.

The strongest position that can be taken, which is the least easy to destroy politically, is "no censorship at all"; anything less than that will definitely lead to expanding censorship.

wes

Awful news for the Russia people. ACTA was lucklily stopped in here in Europe, but it won't be long imho, before we see some groups demand similar laws as the one passed in Russia. Just goes to show that the fight for Internet freedom, is ongoing and world wide.

opti0nal

wes wrote: »

Awful news for the Russia people. ACTA was lucklily stopped in here in Europe,

Web site blacklisting already operates in many parts of Europe.

wes

opti0nal wrote: »

Web site blacklisting already operates in many parts of Europe.

Yes, but Acta would have made things a lot worse.

Eggy Baby!

I think stories about internet censorship and surveillance in Russia/China etc distract from what's going on closer to home.

While I'm trying to avoid mentioning the West in this thread, its evident that surveillance is much more widespread in America and Britain in particular than in Russia. However there is a difference between suppressing dissent and fighting criminal activity.

The Russian law (lets call it SOPAski) when combined with the recent Russian libel law, in which people can be prosecuted for "slandering" local officials, could lead to local officials applying pressure to remove sites that are critical of them. This in turn could hurt anti-corruption bloggers and whistleblowers.

Awful news for the Russia people. ACTA was lucklily stopped in here in Europe, but it won't be long imho, before we see some groups demand similar laws as the one passed in Russia. Just goes to show that the fight for Internet freedom, is ongoing and world wide.

The IWF was already mentioned here so Britain already has a blacklisting body.

We'll have to wait and see if it is genuinely awful news for the Russians. It could be used to prohibit harmful material or else it could be abused. The broad support SOPAski enjoys in Russia and in the Duma itself indicates that people may be overreacting. I also think its a particular overreaction to call it a Russian "Great Firewall".

It is however indicative of the general prevalent mood of governments today- that of suspicion towards the internet. People are fearful and suspicious towards things they don't understand.

The only problem in Russia limiting free speech is the near-monopoly the government has on TV stations, mainly through proxies such as GAZPROM. However, I understand that there are several indie stations and the newspaper scene is very free. Plus the government's share of the national media is shrinking.

Web site blacklisting already operates in many parts of Europe.

It does, but that doesn't excuse blacklisting in other countries I'm afraid.

opti0nal

Eggy Baby! wrote: »

difference between suppressing dissent and fighting criminal activity.

Not if the dissent is classificed as a criminal activity or involves something like it...for example leaking of confidential material.

Eggy Baby! wrote: »

The Russian law (lets call it SOPAski) when combined with the recent Russian libel law, in which people can be prosecuted for "slandering" local officials,

Libel and slander are illegal here. too.

Eggy Baby! wrote: »

The only problem in Russia limiting free speech is the near-monopoly the government has on TV stations,

Seems similar to Ireland.

The difference between Ireland and Russia is that we have extensive universal surveillance via data retention and mobile phone tracking but no blacklist (yet), whereas the Russians have a blacklist but are not as strong on automated surveillance.

Eggy Baby!

Optional, just for curiosity, what is your opinion on the Russian bill where foreign funded NGOs are called "foreign agents"?

I personally don't think that SOPAski is indicative of a general Russian assault on civil and political freedoms, btw

opti0nal

Eggy Baby! wrote: »

Optional, just for curiosity, what is your opinion on the Russian bill where foreign funded NGOs are called "foreign agents"?

That seems to be in a different bill to the one mentioned in the original post?

Prima facie, there is nothing in the blacklist bill, which is the subject of this thread, that is not already practised in many other western democracies.

Count Dooku

Eggy Baby! wrote: »

Optional, just for curiosity, what is your opinion on the Russian bill where foreign funded NGOs are called "foreign agents"?

Copypaste from US law
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act

Eggy Baby!

opti0nal wrote: »

That seems to be in a different bill to the one mentioned in the original post?

Prima facie, there is nothing in the blacklist bill, which is the subject of this thread, that is not already practised in many other western democracies.

I know it is, but I was just curious- western media would represent SOPAski and the foreign agent NGO bills as some sort of broad assault on Russian civil rights. But if the Russians were financially supporting, for example, a whistleblowing organisation, they would be completely vindicated and this organisation would be called a puppet of the Russians. But when the Americans financially support Russian NGOs, its supporting "democracy and transparency".

We really need to stop treating the Russians like morons because it will only make them in turn both intolerant of us and increasingly insular.

opti0nal

Eggy Baby! wrote: »

I know it is, but I was just curious- western media would represent SOPAski and the foreign agent NGO bills as some sort of broad assault on Russian civil rights. ...
We really need to stop treating the Russians like morons because it will only make them in turn both intolerant of us and increasingly insular.

It's a perfectly normal propaganda war.

If you want to see it from the other side, watch Russia Today and see how the Russian government re-frames stories we know from the BBC etc. In addition, they're pretty heavy on human rights issues and inequalities in the US.

I don't think anyone considers Russians as stupid.

Eggy Baby!

I don't think anyone considers Russians as stupid.

Not here, but current Russian foreign policy has likely stemmed from the fact that they feel disrespected and marginalised on the global stage and are trying to assert themselves. For example- being lectured on democracy and human rights consistently by many nations.

Crann na Beatha

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Eggy Baby!

Will be interesting do see this law in action,many people,many friends of mine who are anti-Putin are very worried for good reason,when I spoke to someone versed in Russian legal matters from St Petersburg about this issue I was told that basically they are looking to target the Child pornography and the Militant Chechen Islamist sites.
Time will tell

But how would NGOs and "opposition groups" be targeted by the law?

Crann na Beatha

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Tea drinker

I don't welcome the Not a good track record for some NGO agents in Russia, e.g the spy rock was involved in NGO.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/9022827/Russian-spy-rock-was-genuine-former-chief-of-staff-admits.html#

In this way, they claimed, the Russian informant could wirelessly store information in the rock where it was retrievable by the British agents in a 21st-century version of what is known as a 'dead-letter drop'.
Sergei Ignatchenko, a spokesman for the FSB, said: "This is the first time we literally caught them red-handed in the process of contacting their agents here and received evidence that they finance a number of non-governmental organisations."

Eggy Baby! wrote: »

.....when the Americans financially support Russian NGOs, its supporting "democracy and transparency".

We really need to stop treating the Russians like morons because it will only make them in turn both intolerant of us and increasingly insular.

It's not the Russians that are treated like morons, it's us, you can't really blame them (agencies), especially with the self censorship of the media there to catch their fall. While the Germans seem prepared to advance trade and the french to some extent, rest of Europe is beligerent towards the Russians. They have a point, at some stage you have to get over the past (e.g ourselves and Northern problems)
While some are beligerent others are outright hostile. Looking at the coloured revolutions bringing blood encrusted democracy in other countries one can see why Russia needs to protect it's underbelly.

I (among others) noticed some regular western discussion sites are infracting or banning now for very minor infractions, basically not towing the party line. It's not a good sign at all.

Eggy Baby!

Aquila wrote: »

Where have i mentioned such organisations?

Well you said your friends were afraid the law could be used to stifle opposition. How exactly did they give basis to their fears?

Crann na Beatha

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Eggy Baby!

But I just can't see how they would suppress dissent with this law, or why? If Putin's intention wasto suppress dissent wouldn't he do it more subtly? He's a smart guy is he not?