DeadJournal

On April 4, LiveJournal (“Live Journal”, or more often just LJ) forced users to enter into a new agreement. It implies consent to total surveillance and contains a warning about responsibility for actions that the FSB may not like

Live Journal is no longer alive, but dead. The anonymous blogging platform moved towards this gradually. Unlike competitors (Blogger, BlogSpot, later WordPress and Wix), LJ, created in 1999 by American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick, had the distinct features of a social network from the very beginning. This is the ability to exchange messages, maintain collective blogs and, most importantly, read the friend feed - what was written (in chronological order) by those you follow. These properties made LJ very popular among Russian intellectuals in the early 2000s: a discussion platform and literary environment emerged: the author immediately met other authors and readers.

At first, the Cyrillic segment of LJ was a place of communication for humanists - philologists, historians, cultural experts, economists. One of the first active bloggers was Tartu philologist and networker Roman Leibov. LJ gradually replaced the previously popular Internet forums. It contains an important archive of texts and conversations from the 2000s to 2010s. Economist Konstantin Sonin, for example, has more than 2,400 entries in LJ, political scientists Vladimir Gelman - more than 3,400, Grigory Golosov - more than 1,000, Kirill Rogov - about 300, writer Dmitry Gorchev - more than 1,600. Many blogs were actively updated only in the period 2002– 2011s, then activity moved to other platforms. LiveJournal played a huge role in the development of Alexei Navalny as an independent politician.

In 2005, Fitzpatrick sold the company through which he owned LJ to the computer company Six Appart, and during 2006–2007 it gradually transferred control of LJ to SUP Media, created by former co-owner of the Afisha publishing house Andrew Paulson and entrepreneur Alexander Mamut. The role of organizers and brokers of this transaction was played by journalists and network figures Ivan Zasursky and Anton Nosik. Since LiveJournal was opposed to the Russian authoritarian government, both liberals and nationalists immediately began to fear the introduction of censorship.

She didn't have to wait long. One of the first criminal cases was that of Savva Terentyev from Syktyvkar - for dislike of the police. In the late 2000s, censorship affected mainly nationalists and opposition figures, then censors began to monitor messages that mentioned drugs, suicide, etc. There are cases and bans for extremism. Recently, the principles of “bringing to the TOP” (the most popular posts of the last moment, visible not only to subscribers of a given blogger, but also to a wider audience) have become political: for example, a post with a negative attitude towards Stalin’s repressions had little chance of getting there. In December 2016, nationalist blogger Alexey Kungurov received two and a half years in prison for criticizing Russia’s operation in Syria in LJ.

Convenient before the advent of social networks, but looking deeply archaic in recent years, the project gradually turned into a “fading star ”. Meanwhile, Internet censorship in Russia is becoming stricter year after year, and in December 2016, LJ was forced to physically move the servers to Russia. From now on, bloggers are “protected” only by Russian laws—California’s no longer apply to them. Why are the majority (83%) of criminal cases for likes, shares and reposts initiated for statements on VKontakte? Yes, because this network operates under Russian laws and cooperates with “law enforcement agencies.” Now LJ will be able to compete with VKontakte in this regard: he hesitated for a long time, but now it seems as if he is striving to become the “first student” (in the terms of Evgeniy Schwartz’s play “Dragon”).

In the new agreement, LJ notifies bloggers that it now complies with any and all requirements of the Russian authorities, including the storage and transfer of personal data, posts strictly for subscribers, etc. Bloggers are forced to label “18+” materials for adults (and Mizulina believes that this labeling should be extended to the films “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings,” recalls historian and literary critic Nikolai Podosokorsky). Without an agreement with the administration, bloggers are prohibited from campaigning for politicians (that is, expressing their position). The same prohibition is contained in the VKontakte user agreement. The blog host is responsible not only for what he himself has published, but also for the statements of his commentators. If a blogger’s account was hacked and something “bad” was written on his behalf, then the blogger is released from liability only if he warned the administration in advance (!) about the possibility of his account being hacked. The penalty for failure to comply with the terms of the agreement is deletion of the account by the administration without notice. Inactive accounts can also be deleted.

What the Internet might look like in places of detention, where prisoners are not only under arrest, but also cannot take a single step left or right without the knowledge of the administration. Yes, that's exactly it. The Russian model may turn out to be even tougher than the Chinese one. In China, it is possible to criticize the authorities, but the main thing that is not allowed is to call for large gatherings. Russian authorities are afraid of both meetings and criticism, so they ban everything at once.