In Moscow, it is better to avoid cameras, for a post about Putin we will be imprisoned for 7 years, and memes in social networks are guarded by an AI system. The Russian authorities are tightening a technological noose around their society, which is even called “cybergulag”.
Journalist Ekaterina Maksimova avoids the Moscow metro like the plague, even though she has a much harder time getting around the Russian capital. Last year, an activist who participated in protests was detained five times. As the police officers explained to her, an advanced camera system with facial recognition “reacted” to her. Subway officers often didn’t know why.
Russian society is currently kept under the thumb with the help of fairly advanced technologies. Some call it “cybergulag” commissioned by President Vladimir Putin.
Russian cyber gulag - cameras, surveillance of citizens and more
The mentioned Orwell face recognition camera system has existed in Moscow since at least 2018. In 2020, authorities successfully used more than 250,000 devices to track COVID-19 quarantine violators.
In 2021, the cameras should have worked perfectly during protests related to the arrest of Alexei Navalny. Now they serve to find people who dodge the military draft and protest against the authorities.
Experts note that the Kremlin has been rather indifferent to new technologies for many years. This was to change after the high-profile protests of 2011-2012, which were organized mainly on the Internet. Since then, the country’s authorities have increasingly closely monitored the network and other means of communication.
New laws have allowed regulators to block many inconvenient websites. Subsequent changes obligated mobile operators to keep a history of calls or messages sent by citizens - so that the country’s services have easy access to them. Finally, Russia has said it wants to create its own “sovereign internet”. The titanic project has been compared to a Chinese computer network cut off from the West by a powerful firewall.
The annexation of Crimea and the war in Ukraine increased Russian control
The campaign on the Internet and monitoring of social networks intensified in 2014, when the law “On countering extremism” came into force. According to reports, the popular VKontakte service is ready to cooperate with the country’s authorities. Users of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Telegram should also be careful about what they write.
Since February 2022, surveillance of its own citizens has only accelerated. Subsequent legal changes in practice made it illegal to express disagreement with the war, which is covered under the mask of “countering disinformation” and a ban on discrediting the Russian army.
Last year authorities blocked more than 610,000 websites. This is a record for fifteen years. What’s more, according to the online advocacy group Net Freedoms, a record 779 people have been convicted for comments posted online. You can get a fine of PLN 51.7 thousand for speaking badly about the military. zloty. Records of “hanging Putin” amount to seven years in prison. These are all real sentences handed down in May by Russian courts.
To make matters worse, Russia’s top media regulator and censor, Roskomnadzor, is investing in artificial intelligence technology. From February, the Oculus artificial intelligence system will start working, which automatically searches for content that violates the prohibitions of the authorities. The system is expected to analyze about 200,000 images per day. The human censor operates at an average rate of 200 photos per day. Independently, two artificial intelligence systems are already being developed that analyze text records.
Source: Wprost
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