By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

Russia continues its will to control the thoughts and inquiries of citizens. Most recently the State Duma is voting to amend existing legislation to assess an administrative fine against individual internet users “searching for and gaining access to extremist materials.” Predictably the definition of Extremist likely will include anything the state considers objectionable and the targets will likely include its citizenry, not just the content providers or authors.

If adopted, individuals making unlawful internet searches could receive fines between three and five thousand rubles. ($38 to $64). Officials face fines of ten to twenty thousand rubles ($128 to $256) and for legal entities one hundred to two hundred thousand rubles ($1,280 to $2,560).

The amendments further prohibit attempts to bypass enforcement or surveillance by gaining access to prohibited information by using VPN services and also proscribe the advertisement of software and hardware that serve to work-around the government’s firewalls against such sites.

The Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media justified the necessity of such rules in an interview with Izvestia stating, “that the measures proposed by the deputies are aimed solely at protecting citizens from cyberbullying and creating a secure digital environment. They will help fight intruders and will not affect bona fide users. We are talking only about the deliberate search for such information, which must be proved by law enforcement agencies. Instagram or Facebook (owned by Meta, banned in Russia as an extremist organization) is out of the question.”

There remains the issue of intent in order to satisfy the elements of the offense. Ministers claim that solely clicking on a link is insufficient to prove a violation due to the possibility of accident or mistake, especially with Auto-Complete generated searches. I suspect however that it might be a mere formality to establish intent by showing via browser history or search engine logs counting the frequency the user searched for a prohibited search topic. In practice the most effective tool for enforcing such a law would be the mind of the citizen himself who will self-censor for the purpose of self-preservation.

One also can wonder how far this proposed legislation will later be expanded – from an administrative law fine, becoming a jailable offense punishable in a future criminalization of the same act. The topics of human thought the Russian Government considers to be extremist, such as political opposition, gay rights, Ukraine, are bound to expand to whatever the whim of regulators might encompass. And these lists are all too easily expanded to meet the current political environment’s demands.

One of the subjects the Russian government considers objectionable, and is included in the Extremist list, relates to Nazi Party ideology. It is truly an irony considering one of the party’s policies was maintaining prohibition lists of Degenerate Art (Entartete Kunst) and Degenerate Music (Entartete Musik) specifically naming entire art and music genres as well as individual artists who were considered to be objectionable or harmful to society and morals. Being included in such lists meant ostracism from society, dismissal from public employment and prohibitions on promoting such art. It was one thing to prohibit the creation of such artwork, but the Russian Government seems to be taking this to the next level by not only prohibiting the viewing of such content, but simply searching for the location of the content is sufficient to justify prosecution.

Russians wanting to maintain what little they have of free access to outside ideas are hoping such legislation will ultimately fail to be enacted. But such broad and overreaching tool laws to maintain control are usually too tempting for governments to resist.

By Darren Smith

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