The Kremlin signaled its commitment to establish full control over the Russian information space in the future and will likely reattempt to deanonymize Russian social media and Telegram channels even though Roskomnadzor withdrew its recently proposed regulations for now. Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated on September 5 that censorship is justified during periods of war and implied that freedom of information would return in peacetime. Peskov also added that Russian media outlets often compete with international media for Russian domestic audiences and argued that Russian content and technological means should not lag in such a “tough” information environment. The Kremlin passed a law in 2014 that tasked Roskomnadzor with creating a registry of all social media users with an audience of over 3,000 people, but Roskomnadzor stopped updating this registry by 2017 and instead created a list of “information dissemination organizers.” These “information dissemination organizers” include social media platforms and websites that were visited by more than 500,000 Russian users per day such as Yandex, VK, HeadHunter, and @iwi. Roskomnadzor’s recent reversal is not indicative of a permanent policy shift, as the Kremlin has passed laws and regulations that Russian milbloggers have vocally opposed before. The Kremlin recently passed laws that Russian milbloggers avidly scrutinized in the past, such as banning the use of personal cell phone devices on the frontlines in Ukraine, for example.
The Kremlin continues to appoint Russian Presidential Administration Deputy Head Sergei Kiriyenko to positions overseeing Russia’s informational efforts as part of efforts aimed at shaping Russian identity and ideology. Russian President Vladimir Putin created the “Rossiya” National Center in Moscow on July 1 to preserve the “Rossiya” (“Russia”) Exhibition and Forum that ran from November 2023 to July 2024 Putin signed a decree on September 6 creating an organizing committee for the “Rossiya” National Center, which will “demonstrate [Russia’s] achievements, strengthen national identity,.. create a sense of pride for the country, [and] develop the professional skills of children and youth.” Putin appointed Kiriyenko as the chairperson of the center’s organizing committee, which will plan the center’s activities, propose events that include representatives of foreign governments, and assist Russian media with their coverage of the center’s events. Kiriyenko has a prominent role overseeing multiple Kremlin information operations targeting Russian, Ukrainian, and Western information spaces, and his appointment to supervise the development of the center suggests that the center will play a role in shaping domestic and foreign perceptions of Russia. The “Rossiya” National Center will likely continue these informational efforts to legitimize Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukrainian territories and to promote Russia’s justification of its war against Ukraine. The eight-month-long “Rossiya” exhibition forum featured exhibits claiming that Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts are part of Russia. The Kremlin has recently appeared to be taking steps to codify a Russian state ideology while bypassing the Russian Constitution, which forbids Russia from establishing a state ideology, by vaguely defining Russia’s “traditional values,” and the “Rossiya” National Center’s emphasis on Russia’s “national identity” will likely further these Kremlin ideological efforts.
https://understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-6-2024
Comment: These two paragraphs from ISW show the other side of Russia’s “information confrontation” activities. Even in the old Soviet literature on the subject, the minds of the Kremlin’s own population was just as important a target as the minds of the enemy, both to protect from adversary influence operations and to shape through active influence operations.
Beyond the discovering, publicizing and prosecuting of foreign influence operations, we do little that resembles this Soviet, now Russian, approach. I say little, but not nothing. Look at the efforts we went to immediately after 9/11 to rally the US population. Although much, but not all of it formed organically. Our teaching of history and, often neglected, civics are efforts to shape our identity and ideology. But all that is mostly at the state and local level. I don’t know if the Department of Education has much to say about that. Many argue that the pushing of DEI and woke ideology is shaping our identity and ideology the wrong way. But that’s the beauty of our system. We, not outsiders, are free to vociferously argue this.
TTG
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/06/18/russia-growing-internet-isolation-control-censorship
Traditional values are not “ideology” by definition.
“National identity” might be, but most times it is not.
So you mean to tell us that we are free to vociferate against DIE (which we aren’t, really), but Russians are not? LOL
The obvious fallacy in your reasoning is that so-called DIE, “traditional values”, “national identity” are all interchangeable parts of a “state ideology”.
They are not.
For one, so-called DIE can never be a state’s ideology, or be part of any state’s ideology, by definition. If it seems that it is, that means you don’t have a state, but something else instead.
The concept of state implies sovereignty, which so-called DIE implicitly and explicitly denies.
Does this mean there are no states or sovereignty left in the West? Yes, that is the case.
tortured logic. though if you wish to bound all key definitions to your own heart’s content, go for it.
Where is the torture? What do you dispute, specifically?
Doesn’t DIE deny the very concept of “border”?
How then can there be sovereignty without borders? Borders are limits.
Sovereignty without borders would mean sovereignty without limits.
But such things are beyond the reach of mere mortals.
Therefore, DIE denies sovereignty, thus denies statehood.
A Portuguese Man,
DEI has nothing to do with the border or national sovereignty. It’s an institutional or management approach that has been around since the 1960s.
So McCarthy and the House Un – American Activities Committee and the purges of the media in the 1950’s was “Nothing”???
The behaviour today of the WaPo, NYT, Google, CNN and Meta are “Nothing”?????
I have news for you and it isn’t good; Only “Outsiders” who have exposure to literally thousands of different viewpoints from a huge variety of non American viewpoints can properly appreciate the lack of spectrum in American media. The Russians may be publicising the fact that they are doing this – maybe by using the euphemism “Applying standards” but America does it too.
walrus,
You discount the power and reach of social media and the wide variety of views expressed there.
TTG,
There are a wide varieties of views expressed in social media but the algorithms put everyone in their own small little bubble. My twitter feed is extremely critical of Israel but I bet mcohen’s feed looks very different.
James,
Those algorithims are what distinguishes the social media companies from telecommunications companies. Social Media companies exert control over who and what is heard. Telecommunication companies do not. I miss the old days of the internet where no one controls what you saw, but you had to dig around on your own to find what you wanted, i.e. no search engines or other algorithms.
When is ISW doing a report on Two Tier Kier or Lulu’s judge in Brazil? Maybe they can run one on Zuckerberg’s non-apology for censorship or highlight google’s?
It’s all Bull shit.
The masses, especially the low bred, lazy and stupid – at least 50% of the population – need to be led, but leadership offers the opportunity for abuse; an opportunity that is most often irresistible. The only way to lead – and control – the masses is to tell them the lies they want to hear. Want do they want to hear? Social science has the answers to that programming. How to transmit what the people want to hear? Social media is the transmitters’ dream.
Freedom is its own enemy. It relies on intelligence on judgment, to maintain but not everyone is intelligent and judgment is deemed anti-freedom by the stupid and unwise…….’cause like, dude, brah, you know everyone gots to does dey own thang.
So of course the Russians and Chinese and Hamas and all sorts of other evil a-holes message on social media, including this forum. This is a no brainer. It’s like the Casablanca shocked to see gambling in this establishment scene. Sheet, our own mainstream media is crap at best with regards to presenting and discussing the issues, and mostly lying propaganda. They are as bad as the Russians and Chinese; probably controlled to some extent by the latter.
It’s all Bull shit.
Yes, usually 50% of the population is below average, alas I see no remedy. 🙂
You sound like Goebbels…….