Russian Paper Examines Internet’s Role in Elections
Text of report by heavyweight centrist Russian newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta on 27 December
[Article by Igor Romanov: "The internet - last refuge of the opposition"]
Yesterday, the opposition Other Russia coalition unveiled a website entitled “Chronicle of persecution”, on which it plans to post information about “repressions” against dissidents. In essence, the leaders of the opposition have declared the internet to be their last and practically only weapon in the struggle against the authorities. Meanwhile, specialists note that web technologies are a two-way street, and often become a means for discrediting the party structures themselves.
Speaking at a recent congress, SPS [Union of Right Forces] leader Nikita Belykh called on fellow associates to develop information technologies more actively, and particularly the internet. “For us, this is an obvious point of growth and the main means of communication,” noted the right-wing leader. “We must all learn to transform the significant but virtual support on the web into real and tangible support of citizens.”
On the eve of the elections, the SPS leadership – evidently foreseeing that other methods of communication with voters would be strictly controlled – increased its presence on the web. On LiveJournal [the most popular Russian blogging platform], aside from pages by Belykh himself, there were blogs by other party leaders – Boris Nemtsov and Leonid Gozman. Parallel with this was the launch of the Gaydar-TV website, which posted campaign clips of right- wingers who had rapidly gained popularity – with a tinge of scandal.
Appeals to develop new information outlets also resounded at the congress of the CPRF [Communist Party of the Russian Federation]. “Any idea and appraisal spreads on the internet with great speed, and encompasses a large number of those people who then, walking away from their computers, may disseminate them further: among their friends, family members and at work,” CPRF deputy chairman Ivan Melnikov stressed in his report. The Communists decided to devote greater attention to a “literate information policy of disseminating ideas on the internet” in the presidential campaign of their leader, Gennadiy Zyuganov.
Meanwhile, the stake on high technologies during the parliamentary race did not bring the parties any particular dividends. There was only a sharp increase in the number of scandals associated with attacks on party websites. All this makes it possible to create additional news pegs, but no more. At the start of the campaign, a mass decline in the internet resources of Grigoriy Yavlinskiy’s [Yabloko] party was noted. At that time, the leader of the Yabloko youth wing, Ilya Yashin, presumed that hackers “had developed break-in technologies, so as to have the opportunity to paralyse the work of this party during the elections”. On the eve of polling day, the sites of Yavlinskiy supporters really did “freeze up”. Yabloko supporters themselves associated this with the posting of a campaign film clip that had been banned from being shown on [the state-controlled television channel] Channel One.
The resources of the SPS suffered to an even greater degree. The party’s leader even had to appeal to his supporters by email. In addition to all else, an SPS “twin” site appeared on the web, which contained viruses. Similar problems also arose for the CPRF. Specifically, the website of the Krasnoyarsk section, to which information about violations was to be forwarded, was disconnected by the provider due to a large-scale hacker attack. In most cases, the main culprits were DDoS attacks, which led to server overload. Parallel with this, “redirection” technology was also used. For example, on 3 December, visitors to the opposition resource NewTimes.ru were forcibly redirected to a page containing adult information.
Thus, the internet, which supposedly opens the way for political parties and currents to access millions of web users, often turns out to be a means of discrediting these same structures. It all begins with commonplace hooliganism, as was the case with the LDPR [Liberal Democratic Party of Russia] website. In August, for an entire day, an obscene picture appeared on the home page of the Liberal Democrats, along with a sign reading: “look after your security system!”, which contained orthographic errors. Meanwhile, the worldwide web presents much greater opportunities for outright black PR. At the height of the parliamentary campaign, a public demonstration of campaign materials from the A Just Russia party was staged on the web. The works of party political technologists were interpreted in a most unseemly light, which could not help but affect the image of A Just Russia members. The radical opposition is being subjected to constant attacks on the part of “well-wishers”. Recently, the kasparov.su site appeared on the web – the “twin” of the well-known resource of the OFG [United Civic Front] leader, Garri Kasparov, kasparov.ru. The activity of the ex-world champion is characterized on it as “the saddling of the protest movement in the interests of the West and the fugitive oligarchs”.
Russian oppositionists are united in the opinion that the contractor of the attacks on their sites is the FSB [Federal Security Service], since cyber-terrorism, which presupposes the simultaneous operation of tens of thousands of virus-infected computers, is a rather expensive proposition. However, we should note that the ne Russia site was also “crashed” on election day. In neighbouring Ukraine, the resources of the party of former Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych were subjected to repeated attacks. Therefore, the woes of the Russian opposition are more easily explained by the free-for-all conditions that reign on the internet. In the opinion of the head of the analytical department of the Nikkolo M group of companies, Stanislav Radkevich, “the internet is now interesting primarily in that information may be disseminated through it that, to put it mildly, does not reflect reality”.
It is obvious that, as competition of the internet with customary methods of communication increases, attempts will be made to bridle this “progressive” mass media. Tsentrizbirkom [Central Electoral Commission] recently pointed out the absence of special regulation for the internet in Russian legislation. In the opinion of TsIK [Central Electoral Commission] member Igor Borisov, “it is already ripe”. Meanwhile, specialists note the low effectiveness of the internet and the narrowness of its audience. “Today, out of the 12 main means of bringing a message [to the public], the internet may aspire to 10-12th place, depending on the region,” notes Radkevich. “The internet is used primarily by young people, who do not go to the elections. This may sound rather insulting to users, but they do not interest us, political technologists.” However, the expert does not rule out the possibility that the situation may change significantly in the future.
Originally published by Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Moscow, in Russian 27 Dec 07.
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