For years, the freedom and deregulation of the internet has been a problem for Putin’s Russia. The Internet makes it possible to federate the opposition to the regime quickly and massively, a threat to the stability of the government. The solution ? A closed and censored internet.
The progress of the RuNet project, the isolated and monitored Russian Internet, is stimulated by the war in Ukraine. The war threatens the regime’s popularity and legitimacy as Russian internet users rally to denounce their government’s violence.
After the Great Firewall of China, censorship
Roskomnadzor
After developing an expensive and authoritarian infrastructure, China managed to create a censored and monitored version of the internet. Russia surely wishes to learn from this success of authoritarianism. However, China’s siled internet comes at a high price: the Great Firewall is estimated to cost $20 billion a year. The Chinese firewall inspects everything that happens online and blocks access to a number of blacklisted sites. All internet content available in China is first combed through three checkpoints.
Russia has not invested such efforts in internet censorship, and probably does not have such resources at its disposal. Indeed, the complete restriction of the Internet requires two elements: control over content coming from outside, and barriers preventing access to this content from the inside. For the moment, the Russian service in charge of supervising information technologies, Roskomnadzor, forces Internet access providers to redirect Internet users away from content deemed undesirable. However, the 3,000 suppliers present on Russian territory do not always succeed in blocking access to information sources.
crush the opposition
On March 4, 2022, the Russian government blocked all Internet users from accessing Twitter from Russia. For the previous six days, access to Twitter had been limited by a slow internet connection, until the platform became completely inaccessible. Such an operation shows to what extent social networks represent a threat for Russian rulers.
It will not be easy for Russia to suddenly control all internet content available in the territory. The Russian Internet system is itself partially operated by foreign companies: such a dependence on foreign technologies prevents complete censorship of content. Russia is trying to get rid of these links, in particular by replacing these companies with national industry. This not only helps to tighten control over online activity, but also to deal with sanctions imposed by foreign powers.
Source: Wired
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