The Real Russia. Today. Telegram agrees to share some user data, regulators try to protect ‘disabled’ small-chested women, and the Duma becomes a lobbyists' haven

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

This day in history. On August 28, 1924, Georgian insurgents launched an ultimately unsuccessful insurrection against Soviet rule. The August Uprising would be one of the last major rebellions against the Bolsheviks, cementing Soviet rule in Georgia for the next 67 years.

• Telegram founder assures users that new privacy policy doesn't mean he's getting in bed with the FSB
• Federal officials put a regressive spin on their latest decision against sexist advertising
• A Russian ‘anti-extremism’ police officer says he managed in just an hour to review 14,000 images shared on social media
• As Russia prosecutes more online hate speech than ever, its first convict wins on appeal in Strasbourg
• Putin will address the nation on Wednesday, finally ‘elaborating’ his position on raising Russia's retirement age
• Transparency International says nearly 20 percent of the State Duma is in the pocket of the military and police
• A 64-year-old Russian scholar charged with treason says he's being mistreated in jail

Telegram's juggling act 🤹

The instant messenger Telegram has rewritten its privacy policy, and Russians are raising their eyebrows at Section 8.3, where the network now says it may disclose users’ IP addresses and phone numbers “to the relevant authorities,” if it “receives a court order [confirming] that you’re a terror suspect.” Telegram says it’s yet to surrender any information on these grounds, but it will record future cases in a “semiannual transparency report.”

Pavel Chikov, the head of the “Agora” human rights group, which is defending Telegram in Russia’s courts, told the website Durov’s Code that he believes it’s too early to speculate about the consequences of the company’s new policy. “As Telegram’s representatives, we’ve never denied the authorities’ right or even their obligation to fight terrorism. On the contrary, we’ve adamantly suggested a civilized approach: a court order in exchange for handing over user data — and not correspondence, but just IP addresses and telephone numbers,” Chikov said.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov told the news outlet Current Time that the messenger needed a “real privacy policy” to comply with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, which took effect in late May.

Does this mean Telegram has made a deal with the Devil?

Probably not. Responding to concerns in Russia that Telegram might now cooperate with the FSB, Durov wrote in a blog post that “our privacy policy does not concern the situation in Russia,” stating that his company won’t currently consider any data requests from Russian intelligence agencies. Durov did, however, allow theoretically for the possibility that Telegram might observe its new privacy policy in Russia, should state officials call off their ban and agree to seek only IP addresses and telephone numbers through court orders. “We will continue our fight,” he wrote.

Meduza’s Sultan Suleimanov compiled a list of questions raised by Telegram’s new policy that remain unanswered:

• Whom will Telegram consider to be terrorists? (Does merely promoting terrorism qualify?)
• Will courts need to appeal directly to Telegram, or is evidence of ongoing legal proceedings sufficient to warrant the surrender of user data?
• How detailed will Telegram's transparency reports be?
• Will Telegram notify users after sharing their data with state authorities?
• Where is Telegram's guarantee that its privacy policy won't change again?
• Why didn't Telegram warn users earlier about this policy change, if the messenger knew it would be necessary to comply with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation?

Regulating Russian breasts 🙅‍♀️

A battlegrounds for both progressive social justice and traditional morality, Russia sometimes struggles to produce advertising that does not offend. Officials in Arkhangelsk have zeroed in on the latest controversy, filing administrative charges against an advertisement for new apartment complexes that mocks the supposed psychological complexes of women with smaller chests. While ostensibly defending women from sexist marketing, however, Russia’s antitrust regulators acted on recommendations that small breasts constitute a “physical disability.” The case isn’t an isolated incident, Meduza learned, and sexism in the Russian media has actually inspired a Telegram channel with more than 12,800 subscribers devoted entirely to calling out the worst examples.

Read the full report here: “Federal officials put a regressive spin on their latest decision against sexist advertising”

Go Speed Racer, go! 🏎️

The “anti-extremism” police officer who investigated the case against a woman living in Barnaul claimed in court on Tuesday that he managed in a single hour to view all 14,000 images she posted on Vkontakte. Twenty-three-year-old Maria Motuznaya is accused of inciting extremism by sharing several pictures on Vkontakte that allegedly promoted racism and insensitivity to religious people — violations of Russia’s criminal codes 282 and 148. On August 28, officer Vadim Strelkov reportedly told the judge that he couldn’t remember how he accomplished this feat, but he definitely pulled it off, he said. Strelkov also said that Motuznaya signed a confession.

At Tuesday’s hearing, two local law students testified against Motuznaya, summarizing their initial reports to the police. The two young women, who are also witnesses against another local extremism suspect, appeared in closed court, to protect them from threats they’ve allegedly received because of their role as informants.

Why are the Russian police so concerned about online hate speech?

The growing number of extremism prosecutions is, to some extent, a consequence of Russia’s exploding Internet use. “More people have started using the Internet. We used to analyze books, leaflets, and posters. When everyone moved online, we started looking at Internet content, and that’s where we stumbled into this uncharted territory,” Igor Ogorelkov told Meduza in May. The head of the linguistics department at a center that provides expert testimony to Russian law enforcement, Ogorelkov admitted that Russian extremism policing is still chaotic.

At the same time, new laws criminalizing forms of offensive speech found commonly online (racist jokes, sacrilegious memes, and so on) have armed the authorities with tools that make it easy to prosecute young, typically impressionable suspects. In January 2016, for example, the website MediaZona reported that police have exploited Russia’s “information laws” to pad their solved-crime statistics, charging Internet users who share pornography and bullying them into plea bargains.

A bad start ⚖️

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled in favor of Savva Terentyev, the first Internet user in Russia ever convicted of extremism for a comment posted online, finding that Russian courts violated his freedom of expression by sentencing him to a year’s probation for writing in February 2007 that “it would be nice to burn crooked cops.” The ECHR declined to award Terentyev any non-pecuniary damages, determining that its verdict is sufficient “moral compensation.” Russia will, however, have to pay him 5,000 euros ($5,850) in compensation for legal fees.

The big dog will finally bark 🐺

After a meeting with his cabinet on Tuesday to discuss the plan to raise Russia’s retirement age, Vladimir Putin promised to make a national address on Wednesday, when he will “elaborate” his position on the matter. Speaking to reporters in Omsk, the president praised the government’s use of “hard economic, financial, and demographic calculations” when drafting the pension reforms, promising a decision that’s both “balanced and cautious.”

Is Putin finally going to slap his name on a policy opposed by 89 percent of Russians?

The president’s efforts to defend pension reform without allowing it to drag down his popularity are pure acrobatics. Meduza compiled a fun little video showing Putin’s comments from the past 13 years about raising Russia’s pension age. In 2005, he was unambiguously against any reforms, firmly stating, “As long as I’m president, no such decision will be made.” Over the years, however, Putin has increasingly talked about Russia’s pension system as archaic in a world where other graying nations have had to raise their retirement ages. In late July, the president said he “doesn’t like any of the options” when it comes to pension policy, refusing to say overtly if he endorses the draft legislation (presumably written by the Kremlin) now moving through the State Duma.

Lobbyism hey ho 👍

According to a new report by Transparency International Russia, nearly 20 percent of the State Duma (a total of 86 deputies) currently acts as lobbyists for the country’s military and law enforcement agencies — the siloviki. Some of these lawmakers, researchers say, can be tied to specific federal agencies: 26 are lobbying for the Defense Ministry, 20 for the Federal Security Service, eight for the Attorney General’s Office and Investigative Committee, seven for the Interior Ministry, and so on. Transparency International says outfits like the National Guard, Federal Protective Service, Foreign Intelligence Service, Federal Penitentiary Service, and Federal Emergency Management Agency lack their own lobbyists, but benefit generally from the actions of the State Duma’s silovik lobby.

Lobbyists are apparently multiplying in the legislature, as well, with 33 new first-term deputies joining their ranks in the most recent convocation (elected in 2016). Some of the supposed lobbyist-lawmakers Transparency International identified by name have already denied the allegations, telling the newspaper Vedomosti that the organization is spreading “hypothetical unsubstantiated claims.”

Is this a golden age for Russian lobbying?

Technically speaking, lobbying doesn’t exist in Russia. The concept, at least, isn’t established anywhere in the country’s laws, and the activity itself isn’t formally regulated in any way. For years, federal officials have discussed the possibility of codifying rules for this industry, but the effort has led to bupkis. In January 2018, Meduza special correspondent Taisiya Bekbulatova dove deep into the world of Russian lobbyists and “fixers.” Read her report here.

Hot town, summer in the city 🕵️

Alexey Temirev says he’s being mistreated in pretrial detention, where guards are allegedly keeping him indoors, denying him needed medical treatment, and delaying his access to medications. You remember Alexey Temirev, right? He’s the 74-year-old Russian scientist who allegedly passed secret information to the Belgian von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics. Just kidding — that’s Viktor Kudryavtsev. Alexey Temirev is a top executive at the energy company “Inter RAO,” charged with espionage for allegedly being a foreign citizen and collaborating with businessmen who have ties to either Moldovan or Romanian intelligence. Nope — that’s Karina Tsurkan.

So who is Temirev really? He’s the 64-year-old scholar from Novocherkassk arrested in earlier this summer for transferring supposedly secret data to Vietnam. Temirev denies the charges, saying he was only sharing open-source research with a Vietnamese graduate student.

Are these all the ongoing treason cases in Russia?

Hardly. Without a comprehensive look at everything before judges right now, it’s worth remembering the treason charges against Dmitry Dokuchaev, Sergey Mikhailov, and Ruslan Stoyanov — cyber-threat experts and hackers accused of sharing information with U.S. intelligence. In April 2018, the magazine RBC reported that Dokuchaev had signed a plea bargain partially confessing to the charges of sharing information with a foreign intelligence agency. He reportedly says he thought his actions would help the fight against global cyber-crime. Meduza special correspondent Daniil Turovsky looked at Russian cyber-defense’s use of hackers in a report published earlier this month. Read it here.