Putin vs The Internet

Well, this is unnerving:

Russian President Vladimir Putin and members of the Russian security council are reportedly considering a plan that would give the Kremlin the ability to cut off the Russian Internet from the rest of the world’s connection in the event of a national emergency. The plan, which officials say is necessary to protect Russian cybersecurity, has raised fears about tighter Kremlin censorship, though questions remain as to whether a national “kill switch” is even possible.

Reports first surfaced Friday in the Russian business newspaper Vedomosti, with sources saying, “Russian Internet service providers will be required to install equipment that would make it possible to shut off Russia’s access to the global Internet, in the event of an emergency.” The broadly defined “emergency” reportedly includes “military actions” or “serious protest actions,” possibly of the kind that came in the wake of Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012. The security council will also discuss a plan that gives Russia control of the country code top level domains (ccTLDs), the websites ending in “.Ru,” “.рф,” and to a lesser extent “.Su.”

Ilya Khrennikov and Henry Meyer contextualize the move:

Russia last month banned anonymous access to the Internet in public spaces and expanded the regulation of media to the blogosphere, requiring those with at least 3,000 daily readers to register their real names and contact information. In February the authorities had passed a law allowing them to close webpages without a court decision if material is deemed “extremist.”

Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who used to criticize Putin and reveal corruption among his inner circle, was the first victim of that law when his blog on LiveJournal.com was shut in March. Recent legislation requires Internet companies to store Russian users’ information on servers in the country, similar to Chinese regulations.

Emily Parker adds:

According to Freedom House, from January 2012 to February 2013, the number of websites flagged for containing extremist material and blocked by the Ministry of Justice increased by around 60 percent. In 2012, Russia enacted a law allowing for the blocking of certain websites without judicial oversight. The law supposedly protects children and controls other harmful content but has been widely viewed as an attempt to clamp down on free speech. According to one study, in the year that followed, more than 83,000 websites were put on an Internet blacklist, and the vast majority was blocked “without a valid reason.”

In other Putin punditry, Benjamin Bidder worries that Putin’s successor will be even worse:

The fear is that someone could seize control of the Kremlin who thinks and acts more radically than Putin. The president created the preconditions of such a possibility with his own failed policies. If the Kremlin insiders want to find a successor, they will have to recruit him from the immediate circle of the current president. But Putin has reinforced hard-liners and pushed out the liberals.

The revolution scenario is no less disheartening. Power could be seized by forces from the extreme right and left. The boundaries between both are vague in Russia, as the name of such groups as the “National Bolsheviks” suggests.

Motyl disagrees:

In the final analysis, Bidder’s assessment amounts to an unwitting justification of dictatorial rule, repeating the self-serving claim that all dictators make: après moi, le déluge. In fact, world experience and both Russian and Soviet history suggest that Russia is likely to experience a better future if and when Putin finally goes. Getting rid of him, as quickly as possible, is a bet worth making—both by Russia and the West.