Russian Politics and the Internet in 2012

The 2011 parliamentary election and 2012 presidential election in Russia sparked waves of protests. Throughout these events, political usage of the Internet could be widely observed, including people distributing information and appeals for action, crowdsourcing participants and documenting demonstrations, not least for protective purposes. The political role of the Internet should not be exaggerated, but even so it became clear that state-controlled television was beginning to lose its monopoly on shaping public perceptions - at least within a growing urban middle class that could use the Internet to find alternative information. The Internet policy of the Russian government and its responses to political activism online suggest that those in power regard the Internet as a political force to be reckoned with. A number of laws have come into use to censor and curtail unwanted contents online, e.g. the federal law 'On Counteracting Extremist Activity' and the 'blacklist' law enacted in November 2012. Furthermore, in late 2012 there were signs that the government is increasingly conducting information campaigns using a mix of surveillance, dissemination of its own information and physical action to harass and disrupt the opposition.