Kremlin logs on to the internet

Uncensored cyberspace has become an issue of increasing concern for the government.

After ignoring the internet for years to focus on controlling traditional media such as television and newspapers, the Kremlin and its allies are turning their attention to cyberspace, which remains a haven for critical reporting and vibrant discussion in Russia's dwindling public sphere.

Allies of President Vladimir Putin are creating pro-government news and pop culture websites while purchasing some established online outlets known for independent journalism. And there is talk of creating a new Russian computer network — one that would be separate from the internet at large and, potentially, much easier for the authorities to control.

"The attractiveness of the internet as a free platform for free people is already dimming," said Iosif Dzyaloshinsky, a mass media expert at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

Not making sense

Putin addressed the question of internet censorship during a show broadcast live on radio and TV recently. "In the Russian Federation, no control is being exercised over the World Wide Web, over the Russian segment of the internet," Putin said. "I think that from the point of view of technological solutions, that would not make any sense."

Many people in Moscow say they believe Putin didn't mind a free internet as long as it had weak penetration in Russia. But with 25 per cent of Russian adults now online, up from 8 per cent in 2002, cyberspace has become an issue of concern.

Some experts say a turning point came in 2004, when blogs and uncensored online publications helped drive a popular uprising in Ukraine after a pro-Moscow candidate was declared the winner of a presidential election. Days of street protests in the capital, Kiev, led to a new vote that brought a pro-Western politician into the presidency.

Today, the Kremlin is ready with online forces of its own when street action begins.

On April 14, an opposition movement held a march in central Moscow that drew hundreds of people.

Pavel Danilin, a 30-year-old Putin supporter and blogger, works for a political consulting company loyal to the Kremlin. He said he and his team, which included people from a youth movement called the Young Guard, quickly started blogging that day about a smaller, pro-Kremlin march held at the same time.

They linked to one another repeatedly and soon, Danilin said, posts about the pro-Kremlin march had crowded out all the items about the opposition march on the Yandex web portal's coveted ranking of the top five Russian blog posts.

"We played it beautifully," Danilin said.

In an article published online last autumn, three Russian rights activists argued that a strident, vulgar and uniform pro-Kremlin ideology had so permeated blogs and chat rooms that it could only be the result of a coordinated campaign.

Putin's allies in the online world acknowledge that the internet represents a challenge to the status quo in Russia, which has, since Soviet times, relied on state-controlled television to influence public opinion across the country's 11 time zones.

"You watch the first channel or the second channel and you can only see good things happening in Russia," said Andrei Osipov, the 26-year-old editor of the website of Nashi, a pro-Kremlin youth group, referring to national stations that back the Kremlin. "The internet is the freest mass media."

Uncompromisingly pro-Putin

The Kremlin is also increasingly allying itself with privately run online outlets that foster a new ideal for life in today's Russia, one that is consumerist and uncompromisingly pro-Putin. The main champion of this ideal is 28-year-old businessman Konstantin Rykov.

The pearl of Rykov's media empire is the 2-year-old Vzglyad ("View") online newspaper, which features a serious-looking news section with stories toeing the Kremlin line. Surveys rank Vzglyad as one of Russia's five most-visited news sites.

"Rykov is a man who created a good business on the government's view that it has to invest in ideology," said Anton Nossik, an internet pioneer in Russia now in charge of blog development for Sup, an online media company. Nossik said that Vladislav Surkov, Putin's domestic political adviser, organised private funding for Rykov's projects. Kremlin officials deny any involvement. "It is a general habit of everyone to connect every popular occurrence and success with the Kremlin," deputy Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said when asked about Rykov. "In reality, it is not so."

In an interview, Rykov would not comment on his investors.

"The Vzglyad newspaper has created this appearance of a state publication for itself since the very beginning," Rykov said. "And from the perspective of business and selling ads, that's very good."

Allies of the Kremlin have also begun buying some of the companies that have helped make the internet a bastion of free expression in Russia. Gazeta.ru, long the country's most respected online newspaper, was sold in December to a metals magnate and Putin loyalist.

And last October, Sup, which is owned by Alexander Mamut, a tycoon with ties to the Kremlin, bought the rights to develop the Russian-language segment of US-based LiveJournal. The segment, with half a million users, is Russia's most popular blog portal.

"Rykov is pro-Kremlin. Mamut and Sup are pro-Kremlin. The social networks are all being bought by pro-Kremlin people," Ruslan Paushu, 30, a popular blogger who works for Rykov, said.