A lot of Russian content ends up on Western social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram and Twitter, where people share funny and often plain crazy videos and images about everyday life there. Such videos have gained so much momentum on YouTube that a single Russian fail compilation amasses tens of millions of views. And there are plenty of them!
However, Western social media in Russia is not something to be taken for granted. In fact, on March 10 this year, photos and videos on Twitter were loading more slowly than usual for users in Russia. This came as a flashback for opposition activists who started demonstrations against electoral fraud as early as a decade ago with the help of Facebook and VKontakte.
Since then, the state has been in development of a legal and technological toolkit to regulate online information. They introduced content filters, started blocking lists and fining or even jailing people for things they post online.
In 2019, the Kremlin made a controversial move in taking control over the country’s internet infrastructure. The so-called “sovereign internet” law was introduced, which was basically a series of amendments to existing laws. TIME explains that these amendments theoretically enabled the Russian authorities to isolate “RuNet”—the unofficial name for websites hosted in Russia and sites on Russian domain names— from the global web in vaguely defined times of crisis, giving the Russian authorities control over flows of data coming in and out of the country.
What’s more, the “sovereign internet” law required internet service providers (ISPs) to install deep packet inspection (DPI) equipment. The same equipment has been used by some countries, like China, for censorship. It turns out that DPI equipment tools enable the state to circumvent providers, automatically block content and reroute internet traffic.
