Amid the Russian government’s illegal war on Ukraine and unprecedented Big Tech action against Russia, Vladimir Putin’s government is cracking down on the internet more than ever before. Yet most of the discussion has focused on the technical measures Russia is using to block access to accurate information, ignoring a more insidious and violent element of the Russian playbook: going after tech company employees.
Western media commentary often discusses internet censorship in purely technological terms. In large part, this is attributable to the prominence and sophistication of China’s internet control model and its notorious Great Firewall. Internet control, however, is not just about blocking content and filtering access to websites. Russia’s internet control model relies heavily on traditional, physical coercion, from intelligence service harassment to complex, confusing, and inconsistently enforced speech laws. To quote Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen, you can’t talk about Moscow’s shaping and suppression of information without discussing the “economy of terror.”
The Kremlin’s use of physical coercion was on stark display last September. Ahead of the nationwide Russian elections, Russia’s internet censor demanded that Google and Apple delete an app made by opposition leader Alexey Navalny. Both companies—who had new, local offices per a recent law—initially refused. So, the Kremlin went after their employees.
The Russian parliament summoned company representatives to demand they delete the app and threaten punishment if they failed to comply—calling them keeping the app up “election interference,” according to Russian news sites Meduza and the Moscow Times. Bailiff officers visited company offices to demand compliance, the Financial Times reported, and the Kremlin sent masked, armed thugs to hang around Google’s Moscow office. It was also recently revealed in the Washington Post that agents believed to be from the FSB, the successor security service to the Soviet-era KGB, showed up at the home of Google’s top executive in Russia and told her she would be imprisoned within 24 hours if nothing was done. After her security team moved her to a hotel, the agents followed the person there to repeat the warning. Sure enough, both companies deleted the app. The U.S. government did not comment on the blatant pressure tactics. Apple and Google did not directly respond to the Washington Post or Financial Times about their findings.
Now, the Russian government is ramping up its war on foreign internet companies—classifying Facebook and Instagram as “extremist” organizations and calling YouTube a tool of Western “information warfare” against Russia. Moscow has long used force against domestic enterprises as well. In 2013, the Russian government raided the offices of “Russian Facebook” VK (then VKontakte) as part of an infamous campaign to pressure and oust CEO and co-founder Pavel Durov. The Kremlin has arrested media figures and citizens protesting the war, and Russian tech firms getting censorship demands on the war likewise know their employees face physical harm.
In the coming weeks, Putin is likely to amplify this crackdown, and companies’ employees in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and even other parts of Eastern Europe may be at risk. The same goes for contractors, contributors, developers, and others associated with the companies. For example, there are websites like Wikipedia that rely on volunteer moderators or contributors who are not employees per se but may be targeted by the Kremlin for their activities. These firms, many of which likely spend much of their resources on online content moderation and cybersecurity, must now account for physical targeting risks in their decision-making.
The Belarusian government, which has offered support to Russia throughout its invasion of Ukraine and has been sanctioned as a result, recently arrested one of Wikipedia’s top Russian editors, according to local media. The offense, as described in the Verge, was contributing edits that reflect badly on Vladimir Putin—or, as the Lukashenko regime in Belarus put it, “distributing fake anti-Russia information.” The editor, Mark Bernstein, had his personal information shared on the organized crime directorate’s Telegram channel before the arrest.
All of this matters as the Putin regime continues waging war on and committing what the Biden administration has called war crimes in Ukraine—including apparently massacring hundreds of civilians in Bucha—and works to spread lies to the world and to its domestic populace about that reality. Where foreign companies resist the Kremlin’s demands and restrict its state and proxy media, the Russian government may target their personnel. Similarly, domestic companies and their employees are under increased threat as the Putin regime clamps down even harder on Russian citizens. The emphasis on force as a means of coercion could very well turn into force as a means of punishment, too.
Unlike Beijing, whose censorship model is much more technical, the Russian government regularly weaponizes traditional, physical coercion to shape online speech and get access to data. Moscow will only continue bringing this fight to companies’ and individuals’ doorsteps.
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