Media Governance and Industries Lab Blog

By Yulia Belinskaya*

On April 13, 2018 for the first time in Russian modern history an entire medium was banned under the Anti-Terrorism Law. A small Tagansky court of Moscow has ruled to restrict access to Telegram in the whole country. The decision was made in one day and had to be executed immediately. Nevertheless, after 10 days of “Digital Resistance” Telegram is still available regardless of 18 million IP addresses being blocked.

The ban has been criticised on the international level. EU Ambassador to Russia Marcus Ederer said that blocking of Telegram violates the European Convention on human rights. Johann Bihr, the head of RSF’s Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, also expressed his concerns: “By blocking Telegram, the Russian authorities are crossing another red line in their control of the Internet.”

According to Freedom House, Russia does not have free media since 2003. Internet, however, was a relatively safe place till 2015. Although the Constitution of Russian Federation should guarantee freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of press, the list of repressing laws gave Roskomnadzor (state telecommunications body responsible for media oversight) legal right to block any website containing extremist content. By April 2018 about 120,000 webpages were blacklisted, access to 97% of those was restricted without a court decision. Furthermore, according to the Human Rights Watch report, between 2014 and 2016, about 85% of sentences for “extremist statements” were issued for what people wrote online, and the punishment ranged from fines or community service to suspended sentences and actual imprisonment.

The history of restrictions of freedom of press dates back to 2001, when the first Russian private channel NTV, known for its critical and investigative work during Chechnya War, was captured and nationalised by force. It was a symbolic sign of the impeding changes in domestic and foreign policy. The majority of investigative journalists were fired, imprisoned or assassinated. The Sixth Convocation (2011–2016) of the Russian State Duma (called “mad printer” due to the speed with which the laws were passed) has imposed new kinds of restrictions on freedom of expression and freedom of speech.

A first major attack on freedom of expression was executed in 2012 after “The Bolotnaya Square Case”, when a peaceful rally on May 6 in Moscow escalated into confrontation with the police forces and ended with mass arrests of public activists. With a record setting speed the Law on Rallies had been adopted: amendments have not only increased fines for violations of the law, but also gave the right to the regions to determine the places where it is prohibited to hold processions and demonstrations.

In 2013, the Russian LGBT propaganda law was passed, restricting any public speech and action in relation to LGBT issues. The law was justified by potential psychological harm to children, who can be exposed to propaganda of homosexuality. The same year amendments to the Criminal Code were adopted, including establishing criminal liability in the form of imprisonment for “public actions expressing clear disrespect for society and committed to offend the religious feelings of believers” (article 148 of the Criminal Code).

In June 2016, Anti-Terrorism Law or so-called “Yarovaya Package” was adopted. The amendments contained a number of proposals to fight extremism and terrorism online. In particular, it strengthened the responsibility for “public justification of terrorist acts”. “Organisers of information distribution online”, meaning news portals, postal services, social networks, messengers, forums and even online stores were obliged to store information, including text messages, images, audio files and videos of users so that intelligence agencies could access this data. This law clearly violates the right of Russian citizens to the confidentiality of correspondence guaranteed by the Constitution. In addition, companies were obliged to provide government agencies with tools for decrypting secure services, which became a legal reason to block Telegram 2 years later.

State security concerns and fight against terrorism threats are used by governments all over the world to justify limitations on freedom of expression online. According to Walker & Conway, the measures against terrorism-related content could be classified as positive and negative. Positive or preventive measures include different online initiatives that aimed to educate and engage, they endorse and promote freedom of expression. Negative measures, on the contrary, suppress freedom of speech through limiting the access to the content. Powerful states with big defence budgets set up the blacklists of webpages and restrict the access through filters and firewalls or simple take-down measures, which are upheld by hard laws. Victims or these measures very often are the oppositional political forces, independent media, critical journalists or bloggers.

The OSCE in 2006 stated that it is essential that laws against incitement to terrorism do not go beyond what is necessary and do not violate freedom of expression. The struggle against terrorism-related speech, can be not only questionable from a legal point of view, but also counterproductive, contributing to the legitimisation of certain beliefs, which would not find support if were expressed openly.

In order to justify the ban of Telegram, the FSB (Federal Security services) constantly proclaimed that the messenger serves as a platform for communication of terrorists. In particular, criminals used Telegram to prepare and coordinate the act of terrorism in the St. Petersburg subway in April 2017. Telegram was forced to provide to FSB the decrypting keys for “secret” chats. Pavel Durov (the founder and CEO of Telegram) refused “unconstitutional” Russian officials’ demands: “Privacy is not for sale, and human rights should not be compromised out of fear or greed.”

Telegram is used not only as an encrypted and safe communication channel by more than 10 million regular citizens, but also is widely used by reporters who rely on the app to protect their sources and their own identity. Telegram is also popular among independent media outlets that use Telegram as means to disseminate information. The decision to block Telegram could be a first step on the way to ban end-to-end encryption in Russia and a “pilot project” in terms of both technological means and public reaction, which most likely will be followed by ban of Facebook and YouTube.

On the other hand, there could be also some positive outcomes of the ban, for instance, the consequential improvement in media literacy: Russian citizens educating themselves on questions of privacy, online security, encryption of data. Independent media are disseminating information on VPN services, on privacy issues, providing detailed instructions on legal issues and implications of internet laws. In the framework of “Digital resistance”, Durov started to donate money to those who create safe proxies and VPN services. Nevertheless, as the last surveys show the concern about freedom of expression is not on the agenda: for 64% of respondents, the availability of Telegram in Russia is “not important”, and for 43% of them it is “absolutely of no importance”.

References

Reporters without Borders, June, 29, 2016. Draconian new law tightens control over communication in Russia. https://rsf.org/en/news/draconian-new-law-tightens-control-over-communication-russia

RIA Novosti, April, 20, 2018. Посол ЕС прокомментировал блокировку Telegram / The EU Ambassador commented on the Telegram lock. https://ria.ru/society/20180420/1519062160.html

Reporters without Borders, April, 13, 208. By blocking Telegram, Russia crosses another red line in online censorship. https://rsf.org/en/news/blocking-telegram-russia-crosses-another-red-line-online-censorship

Freedom House, 2002. Freedom of Press in Russia. https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2002/russia

Freedom House, 2017. Freedom on the Net. https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2017/russia

Roscomsvoboda, 2018. Independent Monitoring of Blocked Resources. https://reestr.rublacklist.net/visual/

Human Rights Watch, July 18, 2017. Russia: Assault on Freedom of Expression. https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/07/18/russia-assault-freedom-expression

Чечня. Репортаж НТВ о вводе войск в 1994г / Chechnya. NTV reports on the troops in 1994. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypTap5LETUM

Media Governance and Industries Research Lab, 2017. Killings of Journalists Worldwide: The Full Costs of a Free Press. https://mediagovernance.univie.ac.at/research/democracy-under-pressure/killings-of-journalists-worldwide/

Kevin Rothrock for Meduza, March, 19, 2018. Six more years of Putin Animator Egor Zhgun retells Russia’s latest presidency in cartoons. https://meduza.io/en/shapito/2018/03/20/six-more-years-of-putin

Amnesty International, February 21, 2014. Russia: Guilty verdict in Bolotnaya case – injustice at its most obvious. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2014/02/russia-guilty-verdict-bolotnaya-case-injustice-its-most-obvious/

The Federal law “On meetings, meetings, demonstrations, processions and rallies” of 19.06.2004 N 54-FZ (last edition). www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_48103/

lenta.ru, June, 20, 2014. ЕСПЧ признал дискриминационным российский закон о запрете гей-пропаганды / The ECHR found Russian law banning gay propaganda discriminating https://lenta.ru/news/2017/06/20/espch/

The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation” of 13.06.1996 N 63-FZ (edition of 19.02.2018). www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_10699/

The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation” of 13.06.1996 N 63-FZ (edition of 19.02.2018)

Article 148. Violation of the right to freedom of conscience and religion. www.consultant.ru/document/cons_doc_LAW_10699/3f061fb01a04145dc7e07fe39a97509bd2da705f/

Walker, Clive and Conway, Maura (2015) Online terrorism and online laws. Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, 8 (2). pp. 156-175. ISSN 1746-7586. doras.dcu.ie/20841/

OSCE, 2006. Respect for human rights in the fight against incitement to terrorism and related offences. The expert seminar of the OSCE/Council of Europe. https://www.osce.org/ru/odihr/22053?download=true

Anton Vernitsky for Channel 1, June, 25, 2017. ФСБ РФ: «Телеграм» дает террористам возможность конспиративного общения и создания «спящих ячеек» / FSB: Telegram gives the terrorists the possibility of secret communication. https://www.1tv.ru/news/2017-06-25/327652-fsb_rf_telegram_daet_terroristam_vozmozhnost_konspirativnogo_obscheniya_i_sozdaniya_spyaschih_yacheek

Channel 5, June, 27, 2017. Террористы предпочитают «Telegram» / Terrorists prefer Telegram

https://www.5-tv.ru/news/136991/

Pavel Durov, April, 13, 208. https://twitter.com/durov/status/984759555052769280

RBK, April, 24, 2018. Опрос ВЦИОМа показал важность доступа к Telegram для четверти россиян / A survey showed the importance of access to Telegram for a quarter of Russians https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/5aded1d49a7947aee1258ae4

*Yulia Belinskaya is a PhD student at the Department of Communication Science, University of Vienna, Austria.