Report "Agora": 115 thousand cases of restrictions on the freedom of Runet for 2017

Over the past year, the authorities blocked the 244 Internet resources and carried out 61 administrative punishments to users per day, and sentenced to imprisonment for online activity once a week.

The state expands the list of grounds for locks and prohibitions, and the FSB becomes the main regulator of Runet. This conclusion was reached by the international human rights group "Agora", which prepared the report "Freedom of the Internet 2017: Creeping criminalization."

In 2017, Agora counted more than 115 thousand separate facts of restriction of freedom on the Internet. Most cases are associated with blocking, filtration or prohibition of information on various grounds. These data are taken from the official statistics of state bodies-according to the data of the public monitoring of the register of prohibited sites carried out by Roskomvoboda, in 2017, taking into account the concomitant blocking, more than seven million resources were blocked (and over five years of the Law on Black Lists-more than 10 million!).

Pavel Chikov, head of the Agora International Human Rights Association, said in his Telegram channel:

“The fresh annual report of Agora about the freedom of the Internet in Russia. The report “Freedom of the Internet 2017: Creeping criminalization” sums up of 10 years and gives a review of 2017. Diagrams and graphs, trends and the most indicative matters. ”

The international Agora has been observing the state of the Russian Internet for 10 years: the first review, published in 2011, covered the period from 2008 to 2010. Then the reports were published annually.

Results in 10 years:

• more than 200 cases of violence or threats against Internet activists, bloggers and journalists;
• five murders and several attempts;
• 1449 cases of criminal prosecution in connection with online activity;
• 98 sentences to real deprivation of liberty;
• Constant pressure growth on the Russian Internet.

“With the exception of certain years and indicators, in general, the pressure on Runet has constantly increased, which is confirmed by the constant growth in the number of various regulation proposals - from 5 in 2014 to 114 in 2017,” the authors of the report noted.

Results of 2017:

• 244 pages on the Internet were blocked every day;
• Every six days, users were attacked or threatened;
• Every eight days, the courts pronounced a real deprivation of liberty.

“During 2017, the Russian authorities have repeatedly announced outlapoos of the previously ordinary Internet activeness,” the report said. - As a potentially criminal activity (and evidence of guilt in case of prosecution), the use of encryption and anonymizers is considered. Higher level officials, including the head of state, have repeatedly stated the danger and unnecessary of traffic encryption and anonymity on the Internet. ”

The co -author of the report, candidate of legal sciences, Damir Gainutdinov, reports that last year, as in 2016, there is a significant increase in the number of attacks on users, as well as cases of their criminal prosecution, that is, increased pressure in the most sensitive areas.

More than 60 people (some repeatedly) were subjected to threats or attacks in connection with network activity), and the total number of such facts was 67 (in 2016 - 49) in 20 regions. The victims are now not only journalists, but also well -known bloggers and ordinary users. Often investigations on the facts of attacks sabotage by the authorities. Police officers, the Center “E”, the FSB, and also do not have the powers of the power, but guarded by the authorities of the organization take part in the pressure on activists.

Significantly increased both the total number of cases of prosecution or the occurrence of a real threat of charges (411 versus 298 in 2016), and the number of sentences to real deprivation of liberty (43 versus 32 in 2016). In addition, 5 people were placed in psychiatric hospitals for the use of compulsory medical measures.

The situation in Bashkortostan, Dagestan, Karelia, Mari El, Yakutia, Crimea, the Stavropol Territory, the Irkutsk, Lipetsk, Murmansk, Omsk, Rostov, Saratov, Tomsk, Tyumen, Ulyanovsk, Chelyabinsk regions, St. Petersburg, and the Jewish Autonomous Region and Khanty-Mansiyskoye were significantly worsened. Autonomous Okrug. In these regions, the total number of individual restrictions has either increased sharply, or cases of violence or sentences to real imprisonment for online active are noted.

A relative improvement of the situation is observed in the Republic of Altai, Buryatia, Ingushetia, Astrakhan, Ivanovo, Kursk, Ryazan and Sakhalin regions, as well as in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

According to human rights activists, since 2013, the number of criminal cases under Art. 205.2 (“Public calls for terrorist activity or public justification of terrorism”) increased by more than 20 times. At the same time, in the first half of 2017, the share of sentences for public statements in cases conducted by the FSB increased to 30%. For comparison, in 2014 it was 18%, in 2016 - 21%.

The redistribution of the weight of “extremist” articles in the general statistics of criminal prosecution of Internet users demonstrates the activation of the FSB and a decrease in the role of the Investigative Committee and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, says Pavel Chikov International Agora.

A significant number of criminal cases of extremism against users have been preserved in 2017 in 2017, which were reached by 2016, confirming the objective trend. At the same time, he was supplemented by a sharp increase in sentences on propaganda and calls for terrorism on the Internet.

The latest forensic statistics cover the first half of 2017. Compared to the same period in 2016, the main trends of criminal policy have become more pronounced. For example, if in the first half of 2016, under Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, 168 sentences were issued, then in the same period in 2017 - already 20532 . Also, during this period, 49 sentences were issued under Article 280 and 33 - under Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

Despite the fact that Article 282 still remains the most commonly used among anti-ejects, in recent years, a significant increase in the share and the number of under investigation of the FSB and the jurisdiction of military vessels about the justification of terrorism and calls for terrorist activities (Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), as well as cases of extremist activity (Article 280 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The Federal Security Service also conducts.

Note that last year the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was replenished with Article 274.1 (illegal impact on the critical infrastructure of the Russian Federation), also a detailed FSB. This happened after the system of “black lists of sites” of Roskomnadzor revealed a systemic vulnerability, which allows any person to arbitrarily introduced popular resources under the blocking of IP addresses.

“Anti-Internet-Contact” was also replenished with new articles of the Criminal Code about the so-called “Death Groups”. After the resonant article by journalist Galina Mursalieva, this campaign to combat them began in the media, which entailed the emergence of new laws - in April 2017, a bill was introduced into the State Duma to introduce criminal liability for the promotion of suicide by disseminating information about the methods of committing suicide or calls for suicide. In the summer of 2017, a law providing for a punishment of imprisonment up to 15 years entered into force (Articles 110.1 and 110.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

The persecution of “death groups” became the first mass campaign of a criminal law character, directly directed against the Internet. She outlined the transition of the concept of “black lists”, used in 2012 for the technical design of Internet sites, to a new level-criminal activity, which was not initially persecuted at all, or conditionally qualified according to the previously existing articles of criminal legislation.

In addition to the mentioned Article 110.1 and Article 110.2 on responsibility for the promotion of suicide, in 2017 the Criminal Code was replenished with a number of new compositions that became the ineffectiveness of blocking as a means of restricting the dissemination of information. Now the main target of the authorities is users who distribute the prohibited content.

Article 258.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on liability for illegal circulation of rare animals is supplemented by P.B.) Part 2, providing for a punishment of up to 5 years in prison with a fine of up to 2 million rubles for acts associated with a demonstration in the media or the Internet. Article 151.2 (2) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation now establishes a punishment in the form of imprisonment for up to 3 years for involving a minor in committing actions that are a danger to the life of a minor using the media or the Internet.

Content-filtration and information ban in 2017 sharply aggravated. In mid-2017, Roskomnadzor announced that over 5 years of the law on black lists of sites, 275 thousand were introduced into various registers. According to Roskomovoboda, taking into account the accompanying locks due to the use of the IP address restriction mechanism, more than 10 million resources were actually blocked, and the vast majority of them were more and more close 7.1 million - were blocked in 2017.

In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) paid attention to sites blocking the sites, communicating immediately a series of complaints about various aspects of this problem. The case of the chairman of the Association of Internet publishers Vladimir Kharitonov, who complained about the accompanying blocking of his blog “Electronic Book Playing News” (Kharitonov v. Russia, No. 10795/14), the court considered the “potentially leading”, that is, when considering which the system of general measures may be identified.

In the case of Roskomvoboda (Engels v. Russia, no. 61919/16), the European Court will evaluate the permissibility of the ban on the instructions for bypassing the locks and the use of anonymizers. In the affairs of the editorial offices of Grani.ru, Kasparov.ru and the “Daily Journal” (OOO FLAVUS and OTHERS, No. 12468/14 and 4 OTHER Applications) - the legality of the extra -court blocking of the mass media sites.

In 2017, prosecutors, together with the courts, as in previous years, became the main source of records in the register of prohibited information from Roskomnadzor, making decisions on the ban on information about the methods of giving bribes, sites of online stores of alcohol and products, sales about neodymium magnets, fake and protected animals, fishing tiles, drugs, drugs, drugs funds, goods with the symbols of the World Cup, offers of the services of hired killers, the communities of “Zatsepers” and “Ruferov”, etc.

Despite this, almost 2/3 of the resources entered in the register continue to work. At the same time, the administrators several times under the “eternal” blocking of the largest Russian-speaking torrent tracker Rutracker.org reported that despite the two-time falling of the audience (from 14 to 7-8 million users), the number of torrent downloads remained at the same level-about 1 million per day, and the intensity of file transfer decreased by no more than 5-10%.

The limitation of “harmful” content is also ineffective. According to the Secretary of the Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, during the period since 2012, the number of drug consumers increased by 60%. Anna Kuznetsova, an authorized person under the President of the Russian Federation on the President of the Russian Federation, confirmed that over the same period, the amount of child pornography on the Internet increased by 63%. She also reported the increase in the number of suicides by 57%.

The ineffectiveness of blocking from the point of view of restricting access to information was also recognized by the Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov, who proposed moving from content filtration to the identification of users who are looking for prohibited information. As can be seen from the above data, the proposal is already being implemented.

As one of the ways, if not restrictions, then the difficulties of access to the sensitive content to the authorities are considered , including the slowdown in traffic.

Last year, the authorities made a massive attack anonymity on the Internet. In the report “Russia under the supervision of 2017”, Agora indicated that, under the pretext of ensuring public safety, counteracting extremism and terrorism in Russia, a comprehensive system for monitoring the movement and communications of citizens is created, which includes various types of identification and registration.

The beginning of the creation of a legal framework that legitimizes the intervention of the state into a private “online” life of citizens, the two federal laws entered into force on July 6, 2016, which received the unofficial name “Spring Pack”. Among other things, the “package” provided for the assignment on the Internet services to store and betray metadata at the FSB (that is, information on the facts of receiving, transmitting and processing any messages and information about users), and within 6 months-the entire correspondence of users, including files transmitted over the network. The initial storage depth of 3 years was adjusted in 2017 solely due to the fact that the estimated expenses for the implementation of this program, according to some estimates, could exceed 10 trillion. rubles.

The law also provides that Internet services using encryption are required to transfer the FSB of decoding accepted, transmitted, delivered or information necessary for processed electronic messages.

During 2017, 31 Internet resources were included in the register of the organizers of the information that maintains Roskomnadzor, and the total register has 98 services , including SnapChat, Opera, Threema, Mediaget, Badoo and Telegram.

The first known requirement to provide the FSB encryption keys presented Telegram. For the refusal, the company Pavel Durov was fined 800 thousand rubles, after which the Russian authorities had a formal opportunity to block access to the service for Russian users. However, until now this has not happened, obviously, the authorities have not yet made a political decision on blocking.

In December 2017, Roskomskvoboda and the Center for Digital Law Protection announced the launch of the Battle for Telegram project, offering users to deal with lawsuits against the FSB and Roskomnadzor, demanding to terminate the rights to privacy and anonymity. More than 7 thousand people stated the intention to join the campaign.

Meanwhile, for refusing to register in the Register, Roskomnadzor limited access to services such as Blackberry Messenger, IMO (in May 2017 was excluded from the ORI register), Line, Zello and VChat, and due to refusal to localize the data of users in Russia. Linkedin.

2017 again became a record for the number of various legislative initiatives aimed at “sovereignty” of Runet, and in fact, to strengthen control over user communications and the distribution of information on the network.

In the spring of 2017, a new “Development Strategy for the Information Society for 2017-2030” was adopted , one of the principles of which is “the priority of traditional Russian spiritual and moral values ​​and compliance with the norms of behavior based on these values ​​using information and communication technologies”. For the development of the Internet in Russia, it is proposed to defend the state’s sovereign right to determine the information, technological and economic policy in the national segment of the network, as well as exclude the anonymity and irresponsibility of users.

The implementation of the strategy has already begun. On November 1, 2017, amendments to the Federal Law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection”, obliging VPN administrators and similar services, under the threat of blocking, to limit access to the information prohibited in Russia (“Law on the ban on VPN”). Obviously, this is impossible without total control of user traffic, and, therefore, completely destroys the meaning of the service aimed at increasing the confidentiality and safety of communications.

On January 1, 2018, a law entered into force, obliging Internet messengers to identify users ("Law on Messengers"). To date, it is not applied due to the lack of by-laws, however, probably, in the near future we should expect a new stage in the confrontation of Internet services and the Russian authorities on anonymity.

Given that the decipation of correspondence and user identification become key aspects of ensuring national security, the role of the Federal Security Service is extremely increased, which actually becomes the main controller of Runet, both in the field of technology and as the main repressive body.

The function of monitoring, regulation and control over the Internet continues to gradually flow from the hands of Roskomnadzor, created as a regulator of the industry, into the hands of the prosecutor's office and further - state security bodies. At the same time, Roskomnadzor constantly emphasizes that he performs only technical functions, guided by decisions of other departments.

As a result, the Internet becomes a sphere of competence of law enforcement agencies, and, therefore, all the players in it - their potential “clients”.

The sharp spread of the practice of violence against bloggers and Internet journalists also indicates the criminalization of the industry, and there is no reason to assume that the situation may change in the near future.

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