Russian Internet Sovereignty: A Cautionary Tale
“When truth is replaced by silence, the silence is a lie.” -Yevgeny Yevtushenko
These lines from Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko reflect his notion of truth based on a lifetime of dissent against the Soviet government for freedom of expression. Yevtushenko’s personal involvement in protesting the arrests of Joseph Brodsky and Alexander Solzhenitsyn served as the finale of a lifetime of surviving as an artist and dissenting against what he perceived to be unjust. Though Yevtushenko’s poetic works and acts of dissent primarily took place in Soviet times, his words present the question of what censorship in Russia looks like in its various forms.
In November 2019, Russia implemented a new law, known as the Sovereign Internet Law, that permits the Russian government to control the country’s internet traffic and even cut the country’s internet off from the rest of the world. While this measure is intended only for emergencies, the gray area around what constitutes an emergency should raise concerns that it will be manipulated and applied beyond the explicitly stated intent. According to Human Rights Watch, the law requires that Russia’s internet providers install software that can “track, filter, and reroute internet traffic,” meaning the government can block access to content that is deemed a national security threat. But what exactly is a “national security threat”?
Unfortunately, looking at applications of the law in existing cases provides little additional clarity about what the law’s scope is. Since the law’s adoption, it has already been applied in multiple cases that don’t meet conventional definitions of an emergency or national security threat. Social networks have been the primary targets, as social media is the biggest outlet for dissent within the country. Opposition leader Alexei Navalny has utilized social media extensively, even to orchestrate nationwide protests.
This law constitutes a legitimate threat to speech, communication, and the exchange of ideas in Russia, but it also has implications beyond Russia’s borders. Russia has used the law to target Western social media and tech companies, such as when Russia has accused companies like Twitter, Facebook, and others of “encourag[ing] illegal activities.” The Russian government threatened to block content and even implement a ban on Twitter in Russia completely if it did not comply with the request to remove specific content.
In September 2021, the Russian Duma passed two proposals that included plans to spend $425 million on enhancing Russian internet infrastructure between 2022 and 2024 and developing three artificial intelligence systems, which will be in use next year. One of these planned systems, MIR-1 automatically searches for prohibited media and electronic content on all social media networks and would be regulated by Roskomnadzor. Oculus, another system, focuses on targeting prohibited visual content like photos and videos.
President Putin has stated that the issue of internet sovereignty and regulating internet content has to do with maintaining societal order and that the internet must “submit to formal legal rules and moral laws of society.” Leonid Levin, Chairman of the Russian Committee on Informational Policy, furthers that the law is “about creating a reliable internet that will continue to work in the event of external influences…”
However, the true aim of these technological investments is clear: removing signs of dissent from the internet. The Russian government has fined companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Apple and has successfully pressured Google into deleting an app that was produced by imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s team ahead of the September elections. Google Docs was unavailable in the country for over a day when Navalny’s team published a list of his endorsed opposition candidates, who had the best chance of defeating the current regime’s United Russia candidates in the election.
International law provides little guidance or pushback for the restriction of information within countries. The United Nations Human Rights Council recognizes the increasing state threats to freedom of expression. Still, applying international law to the online world is extremely complicated. Questions of sovereignty in the context of the internet can be particularly unclear because of the interconnected nature of the internet and the inability to clearly define jurisdictions. This confusion translates into loose and inconsistent regulations that currently fail to deal effectively with the problem of domestic censorship, so the trend of increasing censorship at the state level continues. David Kaye, UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, noted a troubling trend of governments asserting that the restrictions have legitimate grounds “such as protection of national security or public order…and many times governments provide not even the barest demonstration that such restrictions meet the legal tests of necessity and proportionality.”
Even worse, Russia is not the only country advocating for increased domestic internet regulation. China, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan joined Russia in backing an international code of norms regarding information security and cyberspace at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015.
Since then, these countries have implemented similar policy, which they deem necessary for the political stability and cybersecurity of their countries. The proposal emphasizes that states’ domestic laws and sovereignty should be respected but calls for a multilateral establishment of cyberspace norms. Wang Qun, Chinese Ambassador for Disarmament Affairs states that the proposal is meant to work towards building a clear code of norms to “prompt countries to act responsibly and constructively in information and cyberspace and address concerns of all parties in a balanced way.” This is a troubling trend because internet norms are still in the development stage. Overall, the internet has only been in use by the public since 1993 and only widely in use since the 2000s. Russia’s ability to cut off its internet from the rest of the world will set a dangerous precedent that other countries will follow in the name of national security and cement restriction and censorship by governments as internet norms. Finally, the status of free speech in the West is already widely debated. Britain introduced a plan to broaden government reach to regulate the internet through its appointed media regulator to remove “harmful” content. The European parliament has also recently passed a law, requiring media companies to remove terrorist content within one hour, or be fined up to 4% of global revenue. While both pieces of legislation have admirable goals, they also serve as two additional examples of laws that fail to clearly define what content is covered by the law and have the potential to infringe on freedom of expression.
The U.S. and EU should see the Russian case as evidence of how fragile freedom of expression is and how delicate their democratic societies are, and they should strive to take steps that will protect their interests and freedom of expression. From the American perspective, Russia is successfully manipulating U.S. companies into being complicit actors in hampering free speech. The Internet Sovereignty Law in Russia goes against American values, and the U.S. should publicly condemn this policy and work with technology companies to find ways to become more resilient to the potential economic consequences of the law. Similarly, the E.U. should be paying attention to the law also, as the precedent set by Russia is already spreading, especially in countries like Poland or Belarus. Continuing to pass laws that inhibit freedom of speech, even unintentionally, is a dangerous gamble that Europe cannot afford to take. Defending personal liberties and freedom of expression has long been a cornerstone of transatlantic cooperation and rhetoric, and now is the time to act to uphold these values.
