Careful What You Say

Abstract

This paper outlines the practices of state control over Internet content in Russia, explaining their grounding in the information culture and media environment of the country. Building on existing data on freedom of the press and online censorship, the present work provides a socio-cultural context expanding the understanding of Kremlin’s influence on the Web. To this end, three relevant planes of power relations are explored. The first one involves censorship and self-censorship routines embedded in Russian information traditions. The second pertains to the state-controlled traditional media, where news goes through a political filter and Internet gets framed in a particular restricted manner. The third domain is that of legislative frameworks and their selective application. The paper suggests that the tools used to control objectionable materials on the Russian Web are not Internet-specific. Rather, they should be seen as an extension of the censorship mechanisms used in traditional media.