In case you missed it, Russia isn’t exactly copasetic with the whole “democracy” thing. Case in point: Vladimir Putin recently turned bloggers into vassals of the state.
Back in May, Putin signed a “Bloggers Law” requiring any blogger with more than 3,000 daily unique visitors to register with the Roskomnadzor, the state body for media oversight (insert 1984 jokes here) and adhere to all the restrictions of “normal” journalists. Failure to register incurs penalties up to 300,000 rubles ($8,400), depending on the outlet’s size, and up to 500,000 rubles ($14,000) for repeat offenders.
The law defines “blogger” rather broadly — anyone with a large following, even through microblogs like Twitter, would qualify. It destroys online anonymity and makes bloggers responsible for third-party users on their sites, in addition to imposing the same legal constraints as print journalism — verifying the accuracy of information, minimal user ages, privacy bylaws, and various other restrictions. These all sound semi-reasonable, if a bit draconian, but when mixed with another law passed in February, the resulting concoction acts as a major blow to online freedom of expression.
As Human Rights Watch points out, this other law gives the Roskomnadzor the power to block websites for “extremist” content, calls for mass riots, or calls for participation in unsanctioned public gatherings (which, of course, includes the ban on “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations to minors”).
So bloggers must register with the state, can’t remain anonymous (goodbye, whistleblowers!), and if the Ministry of Truth Roskomnadzor doesn’t like what they’re writing, their site goes poof!
“This law demands that bloggers abide by the same restrictions as mass media without giving them the same protections and privileges,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This is another milestone in Russia’s relentless crackdown on free expression.”
To its credit, Russia didn’t go down without a fight. Russia’s ombudsman and the presidential human rights council tried valiantly to block the new law, petitioning the upper chamber of parliament, but the “blogger law” went into effect on August 1st.
Not lost, of course, is the enduring irony of Edward Snowden seeking asylum in a country like Russia.
And the people have at least some means at their disposal to fight back. The blogging platforms Yandex and LiveJournal plan to stop their displayed visitor count at 3,000. And since Russia’s media oversight body isn’t nearly as sophisticated as the fabled “great firewall of China” (not yet, anyway), some “offenders” will slip through.
But it’s a frightening sign that Russia hasn’t completely abandoned its Cold War-era penchant for mass surveillance and autocratic control.