The Tightening Web of Russian Internet Regulation

"The Tightening Web of Russian Internet Regulation," authored by Andrey Tselikov, is the fifth paper in the Internet Monitor special report series, which focuses on key events and new developments in Internet freedom. The report tracks the recent growth of Russian legislation targeted at increasing restrictions on Internet users:

Over the past two years, systematic Internet regulation has increased more in Russia than anywhere else in the world. A series of progressively more restrictive legislative developments between the summer of 2012 and the summer of 2014 have increased the power of the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office and federal agency Roskomnadzor to block or take down websites for a wide range of alleged infractions. New legislation has also mandated the registration of bloggers with the federal government and greatly increased Russian law enforcement access to user data, among other changes. This paper examines this growing web of regulations and explores how Russian Internet users and freedom of information advocates are responding through online and offline protests, circumvention, and a range of other tactics.

About Internet Monitor

Internet Monitor is a research project to evaluate, describe, and summarize the means, mechanisms, and extent of Internet content controls and Internet activity around the world. The project will compile and curate data from multiple sources, including primary data collected by the Berkman Center and our partners, as well as relevant secondary data. Internet Monitor will create a freely available online fact base that will give policy makers, digital activists, and user communities an authoritative, independent, and multi-faceted set of quantitative data on the state of the global Internet. The project will also produce annual reports that compile this information and provide expert analysis on the state of the global Internet.

The Internet Monitor is a project of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. It is funded by the US Department of State and the MacArthur Foundation. For more information about the project, please see the Internet Monitor website.