MOSCOW - Russian authorities are seeking greater control of information on the internet, with some who favor tighter restrictions looking to China.
Russia's Safe Internet League, an influential lobby, hosted a first-ever Wednesday in Moscow with China's top internet censors, including Fang Binxing, known as the "Father of the Great Firewall of China."
Comments from speakers at the event underscored the desire for authorities to further limit and control information online.
Fang lectured on arguing that countries’ borders apply to the online world as well and foreign “interference” should not be tolerated.
China’s cybersecurity and internet policy chief Lu Wei said that online freedom was not a right but a responsibility to be kept in check lest it lead to terrorism, according to a tweet from a reporter.
Lu echoed Kremlin rhetoric, saying Western media were waging an “information war” against their countries.
Both Chinese and Russian speakers lamented American companies’ dominance of the internet. Konstantin Malofeev, who is chairman of the Safe Internet League and is linked to both the Kremlin and the Russia-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine, said Russia should learn from China’s internet censorship practices and assert its sovereignty online.
Russian internet experts said the forum’s timing and high-profile guests demonstrated an urgency in the Kremlin's struggle to control information ahead of parliamentary elections later this year and presidential elections in 2018.
“I think this reflects their level of desperation inside of the Kremlin,” said Andrei Soldatov, co-author of "The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia's Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries," who spoke to VOA via Skype. “They have these coming elections. And, it seems they need desperately to find some sort of solution to be absolutely sure that they can control the internet before the elections.”
Russian authorities increased scrutiny of online social media after they proved key to organizing mass 2011-2012 anti-Kremlin protests.
“They thought if you control the television stations, I mean, like the major TV stations, then you’re good. Then you control the public opinion,” independent TV Rain’s digital media chief Ilya Klishin said to VOA. “At that point they found out that even internet news websites and people on the Facebook and Twitter can actually organize 100,000 [-person] rallies [in] downtown Moscow.”
The movement against the Kremlin, sparked by allegations of election-rigging, petered out as arrests and intimidation fractured the opposition. A crackdown on media ensued.
Heavy fines and jail time have been introduced for anyone posting online comments deemed extremism, an incitement to hatred or an insult to revered groups such as Orthodox Christians. Prominent bloggers have been forced to register their real names.
Anton Nosik is a Moscow-based blogger and Russian internet pioneer who, just a day before the forum, was for posts he made about bombing Syria and comparing President Bashar al-Assad’s government to Nazi Germany. He faces a fine of thousands of dollars and up to four years in prison if found guilty.
Nosik told VOA he thought he was being prosecuted "because I'm perceived as a foreign influence, as an enemy of the state, enemy of the regime — perceived not by law enforcement as such, but rather by those guys who reported me.”
Nosik said that while China’s online censorship has long targeted politically sensitive issues that are well-known to all, such as Tibet and the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Russia’s internet censorship goals are still developing but fast growing.
He said the Kremlin's desire to censor and control information has sparked a competition among Russian lawmakers to pass increasingly restrictive laws.
“Particular deputies are proposing laws just to make themselves noticed by their superiors and to be included in the lists for the next parliament to be elected later this year,” Nosik said. “So, many laws are proposed that curb internet freedom in very many different ways.”
Prominent bloggers and activists are targeted to send a message, Soldatov said, “because the Russian system, in large part, is based on intimidation and instigating self-censorship among journalists and among users of social networks and bloggers. That's why they use these tactics.”
While intimidation is expected to continue, fully blocking major internet sites or social networks, as China does, is not a likely option for Russia, Klishin said.