By Slava Tsukerman
Recently, representatives of the Russian-language Wikipedia received from the Russian government a notice black-listing the Wikipedia article “Smoking cannabis“, stating it contained malicious information. It is not the first time that Russian authorities have made demands of Internet providers.
On July 28, 2012 the new Russian Federal Law “On Amendments to the Federal Law On Protection of children from information harmful to their health and development” came into existence. This law established new federal laws and regulations involving filtering, black listing, and blocking Internet sites that are found unacceptable by government offices.
Usually an introduction of new laws is a long process in Russia, which takes months, even years. Putin’s recent new laws, which restrict freedom of citizens, were exceptions from this rule. The law of “Protection” was proposed in the Duma on June 7, 2012. On July 28, 2012 the law was signed by President Vladimir Putin and came into effect.
Many experts expressed fears that the law could be used to censor the Internet.
Thus, the Council of the President of the Russian Federation for development of Civil Society Institutions and Defense of Human Rights issued a statement:
“The procedure of blocking Internet content intended to limit access to information, illegal or inappropriate for children, would block it for all users of the Russian segment of the Internet … which, without solving the problems that triggered the law, would make it impossible not to consider these new measures as censorship, which is expressly prohibited by the Russian Constitution and restricts people’s right to access to information”.
The statement also continues:
“We believe it is important to stop censorship in the Russian segment of the Internet and, in particular, in Russia. Censorship will lead to a new ‘electronic curtain’ which will make detrimental effect on the rights and opportunities of citizens of Russia, on the development of society in general and the formation of the whole new economy”.
July 10, 2012, the day prior to the second reading of the bill by the State Duma, Russian Wikipedia community went go on strike against the law. Russian Wikipedia blocked their service for one day.
A statement on behalf of the participants of the Russian Wikipedia strike stated:
“These amendments can be the basis for real censorship on the Internet – building a list of banned sites and IP-addresses and their subsequent filtration.
In spite of all these protests, the new law is operative now
The offensive of the Russian authorities on the Internet continues
On March 29 of this year the Russian Government demanded Facebook block the
Russian-language page of Suicide School. Facebook complied. The page published cartoons about suicide and humorous tips on how to commit it. This was the first case of blocked content in Facebook at the request of the Russian authorities. Now this page is not available, not only for Russian users, but to everybody in the world.
In November 2012 Google and YouTube agreed to abide by Russian authorities’ “black lists” of sites “disseminating” information forbidden in Russia. Earlier, international Internet companies had expressed opposition to the law on the “black listing” of sites. During the passage of the law by Duma, Marina Zhunich, Google’s liasons with the Russian authorities, stated that the law can paralyze half of Russian Internet.
The authorities have a different point of view.
Russian Senator Ruslan Gatarov said in an interview with “Voice of America“: “One cannot talk about the Internet censorship or any other censorship in Russia; anyone who talks about it is deliberately trying to discredit our country. Where is an Internet censorship in our country? Everyone here can criticize everyone and even threaten to murder everyone. In many countries this is forbidden”.
According to Gatarov the US is the most “censored country, despite the fact that Americans so often blame everybody else for the lack of freedom of speech”.
“It is the Americans who mostly control Internet space both in their own country and around the world,” contended the senator. “You can verify this by reading the data of Google: look how many times American Special and other Services asked for the personal data of citizens, and how many such demands came from us.”
According to Gatov, 13,000 applications were filed during the year from the United States and only about a hundred from Russia.
“Of course”, said the senator, “Internet space in our country should be subject to scrutiny, and we will do so by using the experience of other countries, including China.”
What is the Chinese experience?
Access to a number of foreign websites in China is limited within the so-called “China’s great firewall.” Web pages are filtered for keywords related to national security and there is a “black list” of URLs. Foreign search engines operating in China, including Google, Yahoo and Bing, similarly filter search. Facebook is banned.
Sites that are located in China are registered with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which makes it possible to identify the authors of illegal content.
In January 2006, Google launched its search site in Chinese. However, according to the agreement with the Chinese government, the company must block access to sites with politically incorrect content, as perceived by the Chinese authorities.
Wikipedia is banned in China.
