Роскомнадзор | |
Agency overview | |
---|---|
Formed | December 3, 2008 |
Jurisdiction | Russia |
Headquarters | Kitaygorodsky pass , 7/2 Kitay-gorod Moscow |
Employees | 3,019 (2017) |
Annual budget | 8.5 billion rubles (US$127 million) (2016) |
Agency executive |
|
Parent agency | Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media |
Website | eng |
The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, [lower-alpha 1] abbreviated as Roskomnadzor (RKN), [lower-alpha 2] is the Russian federal executive agency responsible for monitoring, controlling and censoring Russian mass media. Its areas of responsibility include electronic media, mass communications, information technology and telecommunications, supervising compliance with the law, protecting the confidentiality of personal data being processed, and organizing the work of the radio-frequency service.
In March 2007, the authority—then a subdivision of the Cultural Ministry of Russia called "Russian Federal Surveillance Service for Compliance with the Legislation in Mass Media and Cultural Heritage Protection" (Rosokhrankultura)—warned the Kommersant newspaper that it should not mention the National Bolshevik Party on its pages, as the party had been denied official registration. [2]
The Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications was re-established in May 2008. Resolution number 419, "On Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications", was adopted on February 6, 2008. [3] [4]
In December 2019, media criticized the service's choice of experts who are performing analysis of referred publications to assess their compliance with regulations. A number of experts recruited by Roscomnadzor are associated with pseudo-scientific and sectarian movements, including HIV/AIDS deniers, ultra-conservative, anti-vaccination and alternative medicine activists. Three such experts—Anna Volkova, Tatyana Simonova and Elena Shabalina—assessed lyrics of popular rapper Egor Kreed in which they found "mutagenic effect", "satanic influence" and "psychological warfare". [5]
Also in 2019, Roskomnadzor published the first iteration of the "list of information resources who had in the past been spreading unreliable information" including a number of social media groups and media websites accused mostly of incorrectly reporting on a single incident in Dzerzhinsk in June 2019. [6] [7]
After nationwide pro-Navalny protests in 2021, Roskomnadzor fined seven social media companies for not removing pro-Navalny videos: "Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki and YouTube will be fined for non-compliance with requirements to prevent the dissemination of calls to minors to participate in unauthorized rallies" it said in a statement published on its website. [8] [9]
On 10 March 2022, 820 GB of Roskomnadzor data was leaked and published, with the hacking group Anonymous claiming responsibility. Anonymous engaged in several cyberattacks against Russian websites as the Russian invasion of Ukraine occurred. [10] [11]
Because of its actions that supported the invasion of Ukraine, Roskomnadzor has been sanctioned by Ukraine, the European Union and Canada. [12]
In February 2023, it was revealed that Belarusian Cyberpartisans had hacked and leaked Roskomnadzor data to journalists. The leak exposed surveillance and censorship programs and ways to discredit journalists. [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] [18]
Roskomnadzor is a federal executive body responsible for control, censorship, and supervision in the field of media, including electronic media and mass communications, information technology and communications functions control and supervision over the compliance of personal data processing requirements of the legislation of the Russian Federation in the field of personal data, and the role of co-ordinating the activities of radio frequency service. It's an authorized federal executive body for the protection of human subjects of personal data. [19] It is also the body administering Russian Internet censorship filters. [20] It also designs and implements procedures of Russian Autonomous Internet Subnetwork, like inventory of Russian Autonomous Systems, alternative DNS root servers in Russian National Domain Name System, controls local ISPs interconnect and Internet exchanges. The main goal is to provide access to Russian Autonomous Internet Subnetwork even after disconnect or isolation from the global Internet (Sovereign Internet Law)
On 31 March 2013, The New York Times reported that Russia was "selectively blocking [the] Internet". [21] In 2014, during the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, Roskomnadzor had a number of websites criticising Russian policy in Ukraine blocked, including the blog of Alexei Navalny, Kasparov.ru and Грани.ру . [22] Also, on 22 June 2016 Amazon Web Services was entirely blocked for a couple of hours because of a poker app. [23] [24]
As of April 2024, 200,000 websites related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine are blocked. [25] Roskomnadzor is blocking around 150 virtual private network (VPN) services and 700 websites involved in advertising VPNs. [25]
In October 2014, GitHub was blocked for a short time. On December 2, GitHub was blocked again for some satiric notes, describing "methods of suicide", [26] which caused major tensions among Russian software developers. It was unblocked on 4 December 2014 and GitHub had set up a special page [27] dedicated to Roskomnadzor-related issues. All content was and remains available for non-Russian networks.
On 5 April 2013, it was confirmed by a spokesperson for Roskomnadzor that Wikipedia had been blacklisted over the article "Cannabis smoking" (Курение каннабиса) on the Russian Wikipedia. [28] [29]
On 18 August 2015, an article in Russian Wikipedia about charas (Чарас (наркотическое вещество) (in Russian)) was blacklisted by Roskomnadzor as containing propaganda on narcotics. The article was then rewritten from scratch using UN materials and textbooks, but on 24 August it was included in the list of forbidden materials sent to Internet providers of Russia. [30] As Wikipedia uses the HTTPS protocol to encrypt traffic, effectively all of the site with all language versions[ dubious – discuss ] of Wikipedia was blocked in Russia on the night of August 25.[ citation needed ]
On 1 March 2022, Roskomnadzor threatened to block access to Russian Wikipedia over the article "Вторжение России на Украину (2022)" ("Russia's invasion of Ukraine (2022)"), claiming that the article contained "illegally distributed information" including "reports about numerous casualties among service personnel of the Russian Federation and also the civilian population of Ukraine, including children". [31] [32] Roskomnadzor made similar threats on 31 March, demanding that Wikipedia remove any information about the invasion that is "misinforming" Russians or it could face a fine of up to 4 million rubles (approximately US$49,000). [33]
In 2017, the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer was briefly moved to a Russian domain name, but Roskomnazdor subsequently acted to remove its access, and the site moved to the dark web. [34]
On 16 April 2018, Roskomnadzor ordered Russian ISPs to block access to the instant messenger Telegram, as the company refused to hand over the encryption keys for users' chats to Russian authorities. [35] The information watchdog applied the method of mass IP address blockings, hitting major hosting providers, such as Amazon, and disrupting hundreds of Russian internet services. [36] [35] [37] Roskomnadzor had to abandon this approach, but failed to implement any other means to stop Russian users from accessing Telegram. In the end, Roskomnadzor and other government structures set up their own channels in the "outlawed" app. In mid-2020 Roskomnadzor officially gave up on trying to block Telegram. [38]
On 10 March 2021, Roskomnadzor started to "slow down" Twitter for users in Russia, attributing the decision to the platform's failure to remove content deemed illegal by the Russian government. [39] This action occasionally caused Russia's key websites, including Roskomnadzor itself, to stop working. It also led to malfunctions of major commercial services, such as Qiwi payment system, and blocked some users from accessing Yandex, Google, and YouTube. In addition, along with Twitter, Roskomnadzor throttled access to numerous websites with domain names ending in "t.co" (t.co being among the Twitter domain), thus affecting no fewer than 48 thousand hosts, including GitHub, Russia Today, Reddit, Microsoft, Google, Dropbox, Steam. [38] [40]
On 26 February 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Twitter said that access to the platform was being restricted to some users in Russia. [41] On 1 March, Roskomnadzor again slowed access to Twitter, accusing the company of failing to remove what it called "fake posts" about the "special operation". [42]
On 28 April 2022, Twitter was fined 3 million rubles (US$41,000) after being sued by Roskomnadzor for not removing content that included instructions for how to prepare and use molotov cocktails against Russian armored vehicles. [43]
On 4 March 2022, Roskomnadzor said it was blocking access to Facebook over restrictions that were imposed on Russian state media outlets. [44] On 21 March, further action was taken after a court ruled that Meta Platforms was guilty of "extremist activity", affecting access to Facebook and Instagram but not WhatsApp. [45] The ruling came after a Reuters report stated that Meta would allow its users to post messages supporting violence against Russian soldiers and Russian president Vladimir Putin following the invasion of Ukraine; however, Meta later narrowed its moderation policy to prohibit calls for the death of a head of state. [46]
In April 2022, Roskomnadzor fined Google more than 7 billion rubles (US$94 million), for not removing what it claimed was illegal content from YouTube. [47]
In April 2022, Roskomnadzor drew up a protocol and a court in Moscow fined TikTok two million rubles (US$27,000) for not removing content related to the LGBT community. [48]
On 23 April 2022, Roskomnadzor blocked the online chess website Chess.com in Russia because of two articles that were critical of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and links to those articles replacing the flags of all Russian users on the website. [49] [50]
The Russian Wikipedia is the Russian-language edition of Wikipedia. As of October 2024, it has 2,006,294 articles. It was started on 11 May 2001. In October 2015, it became the sixth-largest Wikipedia by the number of articles. It has the sixth-largest number of edits (141 million). In June 2020, it was the world's sixth most visited language Wikipedia. As of September 2024, it is the third most viewed Wikipedia, after the English and Japanese editions.
The current government of Russia maintains laws and practices that make it difficult for directors of mass-media outlets to carry out independent policies. These laws and practices also hinder the ability of journalists to access sources of information and to work without outside pressure. Media inside Russia includes television and radio channels, periodicals, and Internet media, which according to the laws of the Russian Federation may be either state or private property.
Lenta.ru is a Russian-language online newspaper. Based in Moscow, it is owned by Rambler Media Group. In 2013, the Alexander Mamut-owned companies "SUP Media" and "Rambler-Afisha" merged to form "Afisha.Rambler.SUP", which owns Lenta.ru. The online newspaper is one of the most popular Russian language online resources with over 600 thousand visitors daily.
Television, magazines, and newspapers have all been operated by both state-owned and for-profit corporations which depend on advertising, subscription, and other sales-related revenues. Even though the Constitution of Russia guarantees freedom of speech, the press has been plagued by both government censorship and self-censorship.
Censorship of Wikipedia by governments has occurred widely in countries including China, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Venezuela. Some instances are examples of widespread Internet censorship in general that includes Wikipedia content. Others are indicative of measures to prevent the viewing of specific content deemed offensive. The duration of different blocks has varied from hours to years.
In Russia, internet censorship is enforced on the basis of several laws and through several mechanisms. Since 2012, Russia maintains a centralized internet blacklist maintained by the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor).
GitHub has been the target of censorship from governments using methods ranging from local Internet service provider blocks, intermediary blocking using methods such as DNS hijacking and man-in-the-middle attacks, and denial-of-service attacks on GitHub's servers from countries including China, India, Iraq, Russia, and Turkey. In all of these cases, GitHub has been eventually unblocked after backlash from users and technology businesses or compliance from GitHub.
Turkey Blocks is an independent digital research organization that monitors internet access restrictions and their relation to political incidents in Turkey. Using its network of monitoring probes, the project has uncovered and documented systematic mass-censorship of communications infrastructure, primarily social media services, during national emergencies and incidents of political significance relating to human rights, freedom of expression and public policy in the region.
Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Zharov is a Russian politician. He served as head of Roskomnadzor from 2012 to 2020.
Maxim Ksenzov is a Russian statesman, Actual State Councillor of Russian Federation, 3rd class, and President of the Moscow Handball Federation.
On April 16, 2018, the Russian government began blocking access to Telegram, an instant messaging service. The blocking led to interruptions in the operation of many third-party services, but practically did not affect the availability of Telegram in Russia. It was officially unblocked on June 19, 2020.
The free online encyclopedia Wikipedia was briefly blocked in Russia in August 2015. Some articles of Wikipedia were included into various censorship lists disseminated by the government. Further threats to block were made following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) is a project that monitors internet censorship globally. It relies on volunteers to run software that detects blocking and reports the findings to the organization. As of June 2023, OONI has analyzed 1,468.4 million network connections in 241 countries.
Censorship is controlled by the Government of Russia and by civil society in the Russian Federation, applying to the content and the diffusion of information, printed documents, music, works of art, cinema and photography, radio and television, web sites and portals, and in some cases private correspondence, with the aim of limiting or preventing the dissemination of ideas and information that the Russian state or public opinion consider to be a danger.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is extensively covered on Wikipedia across many languages. This coverage includes articles on and related to the invasion itself, and updates of previously existing articles to take the invasion into account. Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects' coverage of the conflict – and how the volunteer editing community achieved that coverage – has received significant media and government attention.
The Russian fake news laws are a group of federal laws prohibiting the dissemination of information considered "unreliable" by Russian authorities, establishing the punishment for such dissemination, and allowing the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) to extrajudicially block access to online media publishing such information. The most well known of these laws is the Federal Law of 4 March 2022 No.32-FZ enacted during the Russian invasion of Ukraine; the adoption of this law caused the mass exodus of foreign media from Russia and termination of the activity of independent Russian media.
On Amendments to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and Articles 31 and 151 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation is a group of federal laws promulgated by the Russian government during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These laws establish administrative and criminal punishments for "discrediting" or dissemination of "unreliable information" about the Russian Armed Forces, other Russian state bodies and their operations, and the activity of volunteers aiding the Russian Armed Forces, and for calls to impose sanctions against Russia, Russian organizations and citizens. These laws are an extension of Russian fake news laws and are sometimes referred to as the fakes laws.
The blocking of Meta Platforms in Russia is the process of blocking access and subsequent banning of Meta Platforms' social networks in Russia due to allowing Facebook and Instagram users to wish the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, as well as to call for violence against Russian servicemen participating in Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Readovka is a Russian online news resource, founded in 2011 in Smolensk as a public page on VKontakte. In 2014, its owner created the Readovka website, which at that time specialised in regional news. In 2017 it started to cover events in Russia and internationally. The Readovka media holding includes the "Ready" communication agency, as well as a group of regional projects united by the "Main in the City" brand.