In Russia, cases are increasingly being brought against users of social networks, mainly VKontakte. Unfortunately, the reality is that a criminal case can be brought against someone who does not have any criminal intentions and just saved a picture that he liked, reposted an entry that he approves of (or vice versa, is outraged by it), or left a comment, who offended someone. Soon, VKontakte will allow you to hide your profile from everyone except your friends, but until this happens, go to your page and check if there is anything on it that could get you imprisoned for several years.

The Ministry of Justice website published a list of extremist materials, which includes photographs, videos, song lyrics, books, brochures, leaflets, poems, articles from newspapers and magazines, as well as other types of content. It is important to understand that this list is not exhaustive and is being updated. You cannot post or add to your page anything that is contained in it, but any material outside this list may be included in it by court decision. Typically, materials that contain direct or indirect calls for violence, incite hatred, or discriminate against people on any basis are considered extremist.

Remove from your page any content with a negative attitude or ridicule towards religion, its ministers and believers, the Russian military and any categories of people (foreigners, young mothers, children, veterans, gays, homophobes, officials, blacks, Asians, Caucasians , Russians, Jews, dwarfs, disabled people, etc.)

You should get rid of pictures, songs, videos and text entries that endorse terrorism, Nazism, fascism and violence against the categories of persons listed above.

You should not leave content with statements on the crimes of the Russian military in modern wars and armed conflicts of the past, cooperation between the USSR and the Third Reich, attacks on Finland, occupation of neighboring states, violence against civilians and other historical facts that are not recognized by the Russian authorities.

Photographs and videos that depict a swastika (even if these are stills from documentaries or feature films that are not prohibited from showing), as well as symbols revered in Russia (such as the red star, St. George’s ribbon, Christian cross) that are used inappropriately can be considered extremist. purpose. This also includes images of desecrated monuments, shrines and graves.

Particular attention should be paid to content with insults, profanity and threats - it must be removed. You should not leave any information about drugs and methods of suicide, or instructions for making weapons and explosives.

Your videos should not contain videos with insults, threats, humiliating statements and rude language. Be sure to remove pornography and overly explicit erotica. There is a lot of such content on VK, and viewing it is not prohibited, but if you keep it on your site, you may be charged with distributing pornography - there is such an article in the Criminal Code.

Go through your list of conversations and remember with whom you discussed something “forbidden”: politics, religion, history, drugs, sex, violence. Delete the parts of conversations in which you wrote the most honest thoughts. Ask your interlocutors to do the same (it’s not a fact that they will agree, but still).

Log out of all groups sharing the content mentioned above. Unfriend and ban anyone who posts something like this (especially if they share it with you via private messages). Leave all chats where something like this is being discussed. Clear bookmarks of groups and people who may be suspected of extremism.

VKontakte does not allow you to immediately delete all content posted by a user and erase everything that would remind you of his presence on the social network. After deleting your account, only what you store on your page will be lost, and then only partially. Search will still be able to find your uploaded videos, audio recordings, and public documents. In addition, your photos and correspondence will be saved on VKontakte servers. The comments you left will not disappear anywhere, only the link to you will lead to an empty profile.

It is impossible to completely delete all your traces on VK, especially if you actively used the social network. However, there are scripts and browser extensions that can be used to get rid of certain content with a few clicks.

ViKey Zen allows you to quickly clear the wall of all entries, as well as delete all dialogs, including sent files.

You can only bulk delete photos that you added to albums you created. To quickly get rid of pictures in the “Saved Photos” and “Photos on My Wall” sections, you need to go to editing mode, click “Select all photos”, and then “Delete”.

To delete audio recordings, open the “Music” section in your browser, scroll the list of tracks to the very end, right-click, select “View Code” and paste the following script into the Console section:

javascript:(function())(var a = document.getElementsByClassName("audio"); i=0;inter=setInterval(function())(Audio.deleteAudio(a.childNodes.name);if(i>a.length) clearInterval(inter)),500); ))()

You can delete all videos in the same way, just use this script:

(function () ("use strict"; if (!confirm("Delete all Videos?")) return; var deletePostLink = document.body.querySelectorAll("div.video_thumb_action_delete"); for (var i = 0; i< deletePostLink.length; i++) { deletePostLink[i].click(); }alert(deletePostLink.length + " posts deleted"); }());

Russia is cracking down on ordinary social media users if they post things online that could be construed as a “danger to the state.” Andrei Bubeev was sentenced to more than two years in prison for a picture that he shared with 12 of his friends on the social network VKontakte.

The hand squeezes the tube of toothpaste, the toothpaste flows out. Next to it are words about “squeezing out” the country.

This is a description of the picture that brought Andrei Bubeev to prison. For sharing it with 12 friends on social networks, he was sentenced to more than two years in prison, the AP news agency wrote in an article published on Monday.

Context

Russia uses extremism laws against dissidents

Reuters 12/17/2010

Yuri Schmidt - about pardon, Medvedev, extremism, parties and civil society

Russian RFI service 04/05/2012

Exhibition at the Hermitage is being checked for extremism

The Independent 12/08/2012 His wife Anastasia (23 years old) shows the picture to an AP journalist. According to the news agency, authorities in Russia are cracking down on ordinary social media users if they post things online that could be interpreted as a “danger to the state.”

“He was interested in politics, read the news, shared information, but he did it for himself. It’s like collecting newspaper clippings,” says Andrei’s wife Anastasia.

She now lives alone with their four-year-old son and had to drop out of medical school because she couldn't afford to hire someone to look after her son while she studied.

According to his wife, Bubeev spent a lot of time on the Internet. He shared links on the Russian social network VKontakte and participated in political debates on local newspaper websites. VKontakte is the most popular social network in Russia, with more than 270 million accounts.
“His page was not popular, he only had 12 friends. He simply could not set himself the goal of forcing anyone to do anything.”

Using the law on extremism

At least 54 people in Russia have been jailed for “inciting hatred,” most of them for either posting or sharing things online. The figure is almost five times higher than it was five years ago, according to the Moscow-based human rights group SOVA. The group studies human rights, nationalism and xenophobia in Russia. The number of convictions for hate speech rose from 92 in 2010 to 233 last year.

A 2002 Russian law defines extremism as activities that “undermine state security and constitutional order” or “glorify racism or terrorism, or encourage others to do so.”

The law's vague definition makes it possible to target a variety of people, from those who create a terrorist cell or parade around with Nazi symbols to those who are most likely to write online what could be construed as a danger to the state. In the end, the court itself makes a decision on whether a social media post poses a danger to the state.

Attack on those who criticized interference in Ukrainian affairs

In February 2014, President Vladimir Putin also signed an amendment to the law that provides more severe penalties for non-violent extremist crimes, such as incitement to hatred. Later that year, after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, Putin signed a law making “steps aimed at destroying the territorial integrity of Russia” a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.

Many of those who have been jailed for inciting hatred on social media in Russia in the past couple of years have been critical of Russian intervention in Ukraine.

This happened with the pictures and articles that Andrey Bubeev reposted.

Andrei believes that the fact that he was put in prison was done on purpose: so that other citizens would be afraid to express their opinions, says his lawyer Svetlana Sidorkina in an interview with AP.

Captured by Russian special police

Exactly a year ago, a 40-year-old electrician went to work at a construction site outside the city. Since investigators were unable to reach him, they began to look for him as a suspect of extremism. When Bubeev went to visit his wife and son at a dacha in the village that same day, police special forces burst into the house and seized him.

A few months after his arrest, he pleaded guilty to "inciting hatred towards Russians" and was sentenced to a year in prison. He reposted photos, videos and articles from Ukrainian nationalist groups, including groups fighting Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Less than two weeks after Bubeev was sentenced, he was sentenced again. This time he was accused of “inciting terrorism and actions that undermine the territorial integrity of Russia.” He shared a picture of a tube of toothpaste, as well as an article titled “The Crimean Peninsula is Ukraine,” which called for military aggression against Russia.

On May 6, Bubeev was sentenced to prison for two years and three months.

Sentenced to years in prison

Earlier this month, another man was sentenced to two years in prison in Astrakhan for posting a call for Ukrainians to "fight against Putin's occupation forces."

In December, a man in Siberia was sentenced to five years in prison for “inciting hatred” against residents of eastern Ukraine in a video he posted online.

In October, a court in southern Russia sentenced a political activist to two years in prison for an illegal protest and social media posts in which he criticized Putin and called on southern Russia to join Ukraine.

The online community belongs to a pro-Putin billionaire

According to the SOVA group, half of the posts that led to convictions for inciting hatred were posted on the VKontakte network. The company that operates this social network is owned by pro-Kremlin billionaire Alisher Usmanov. SOVA director Alexander Verkhovsky believes that this makes it easier for Russian authorities to gain access to VKontakte accounts than in foreign online communities.

Bubeev’s lawyer claims that thanks to the privacy settings on the social network, his page was accessible to him and 12 of his friends. The lawyer told the AP that he could not explain how the security service discovered his post - or how it even gained access to accounts on this network.

VKontakte did not want to comment on the case when the news agency contacted it.

Decline in racially motivated violent crime

In the early 2000s, Russia was hit by a wave of violence against Asian foreign workers, but the number of attacks fell sharply after several dozen neo-Nazis received long prison sentences for extremism.

Human rights activists and lawyers who have worked on extremism cases say the decline in violent hate crimes has prompted police and investigators to shift to prosecuting nonviolent insults to show that the fight against extremism is continuing, AP said.

InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.

Non-violent extremism will be punished the same as domestic battery

Russian President Vladimir Putin submitted a bill to the State Duma that actually transfers the first part of Article 282 of the Criminal Code (“inciting hatred or enmity, as well as humiliation of human dignity”) to the category of administrative offenses. In particular, it is used to qualify most criminal cases involving reposts on social networks.

A similar measure was previously used to decriminalize beatings.

In case of repeated commission of an extremist act within one year, the citizen will be prosecuted under a criminal article.

Responsibility for extremism involving violence or committed by a group of individuals will remain

Part 2 of Article 282 of the Criminal Code, as more serious, will remain in the same wording. It is more often visited by people who publish materials justifying and promoting the activities of terrorist organizations banned in Russia (ISIS, Caucasus Emirate), combining this with other manifestations of extremism.

Previous cases of extremism on the Internet are promised to be reviewed

Existing cases of extremism on the Internet will be reclassified as administrative or terminated. Chairman of the State Duma Committee on State Construction and Legislation Pavel Krasheninnikov spoke about this on Wednesday, October 3.

Criminal law does provide for the possibility of applying the rule on the retroactive effect of the law when it comes to decriminalizing a crime or mitigating liability for it.

The problem has been brewing for a long time. Due to vague concepts of extremism, you can be put on trial even because of one picture on social networks

“Not in all cases, criminal prosecution for acts provided for in the first part of Article 282 (...) is justified,” noted in the explanatory note to the document.

There were several cases when all the media exploded with headlines that people in Russia are imprisoned for reposting. Social networks were buzzing indignantly, “they ruined the life of a young boy, why, monsters,” they talked about total censorship, continuing to repost pictures ridiculing everyone and everything and calling almost for an armed uprising. And Internet users themselves admitted that, for reposting which the authorities supposedly put an innocent person behind bars, they roam the Internet in thousands of variants.

From the very beginning, I was skeptical about the theory that someone could be put behind bars for reposting a picture. Calling the authorities and having a conversation is easy. I myself found myself in such a situation when I was called to the police for a conversation because of a historical article on my blog about the “Molotov cocktail.” We talked politely, outlined positions, clarified unclear points, and that was the end of it.

And then suddenly I read in the media that a student from my city was sentenced to 2.5 years for 4 reposts. And again, a wave of indignation and indignation is rolling across the Internet in defense of this young unfortunate man who, “for fun,” “for an experiment,” well, made several reposts of dubious content, and was run over by the “totalitarian machine of the state.” Well, why was he captured?

Well, look for yourself...

So what do we have: In December 2017, a 23-year-old student was sentenced to two and a half years in a penal colony under two articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: for public calls for extremist activity (Part 2 of Article 280) and for inciting hatred and enmity on national grounds (Part 1 Art. 282). On February 12, the appeal court of the Belgorod region refused to change the sentence of Alexander Kruse. According to the student, he did post the pictures, but there was nothing illegal in them. Maybe in those four reposts that all the media write about separately and not. But let's look at the situation as a whole.

But it all started for a reason. And it never just happens out of the blue.

At the age of 17, Kruse registered a page on VKontakte under the name “Alexander Skinhead.” Later, he repeatedly changed his pseudonym: Alexander Skinhead turned into Alexander Frishner, who in turn became Alexander Walter, then there were the names Orel, Kushch, Klinskikh and finally Schultz

It contained recordings that in the text of the subsequent verdict were politically correct called “public calls for violent actions against people from Central Asia and the Caucasus.” In particular, forensic experts categorically did not like the text in which the author wrote (spelling and punctuation preserved):
« ...I propose to take brass knuckles, knives and bats, kill their mothers and fathers, desecrate their graves, I hope someone will respond or is everyone just whining on the Internet about the death of our people? And I alone am not going to kill anyone, so my comrades are waiting for your support».

It was because of his involvement with skinheads that special services paid close attention to him even while he was still serving in the ranks of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

But when he turned 20 years old, he was convicted under the article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Public calls for extremist activities.” The young man, who at that time worked as a loader in a hypermarket, got off lightly - he was sentenced to a fine of 30 thousand rubles. However, in the end, Sasha did not have to pay a penny: he was granted an amnesty on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War.

The verdict of the Starooskolsky court in 2015

So what's next? is done by a person who has not suffered even a symbolic punishment for his activities and views. And he created several more accounts on social networks from which he corresponded in personal messages, and posted pictures, reposts with photographs of fascist generals and texts with approximately the following content:

Plus, there is a flood of similar texts, swastikas and calls. OK. maybe a person is interested in the Second World War. I studied the characters and got carried away. Happens. However, after looking at all this in more detail, you understand that most of the pictures and texts relate to modern times, characters and events. These are the Nazis of our day, calling for the methods of fascist Germany. Alexander admires them, supports their thoughts and ideas. Ringing bell, right?

On other accounts you can see texts and materials of the Ukrainian “Right Sector”, the “Azov” battalion and other radical Ukrainian nationalist fascists...

Who, among other things, burned people in the House of Trade Unions in Odessa and did not suffer any punishment. And everyone knows about it. It’s not for nothing that I remembered this. The student expressed his attitude towards this terrible and cruel event quite clearly with this post in his next account:

And where does he want to repeat this? Who does he want to repeat this with? Do you think it’s worth waiting for a person who is confident in impunity to repeat something like that? Of course, Bandera with his slogans and ideas is present “on the wall” of Alexander’s accounts in full as a hero and a character to be emulated. Does everyone remember Bandera’s ideas and aspirations?

It’s already annoying, isn’t it? The puzzles are gradually being connected into the overall picture. But that's not all. Another account is full of photographs, texts of ISIS members, terrorists of all stripes in bandages and with weapons. Is it worth remembering how many young people with their wives and children have already gone to fight in Syria, for example? How many of them were stopped and returned, but most simply died there and will die again.

Kruse, a law student at the Voronezh Economic and Legal Institute, claims that he did his thesis on the topic of extremism. The topic itself sounded like “Extremism in modern conditions.”

Everything would be fine, but there is one problem. The case against Alexander was opened somewhere in August-September 2017, and he chose and approved the topic for his thesis in December 2017, and at the same time came to the thesis director three times with a request to take this particular topic. The rector of the institute confirms this information. And as some say, all this happened on the persistent advice of Alexander’s lawyer, who was actively engaged in his defense at that time. Now all the media justify all these pictures, texts, reposts as the student’s thesis work.

Agree, the topic is quite specific and the time for choosing it is unusual.

And let's face it. Everyone was a student, including me. Is that how we actively “drew” headlong into our thesis from the very first months? And they certainly didn’t choose her IN THE FIRST YEAR as some media outlets repeat the student’s words. Well, as the finale of this version, as the prosecution states, no materials, surveys, notes, or drafts of the thesis being prepared were found on the defendant’s computer.

But is it all in the pictures? That's what I noticed. Some sources on this case have the following clarification:

At the trial, they began to analyze Alexander’s dialogues with various network users, focusing on them. Kruse conducted them not in open forums, but in personal correspondence from different accounts. “The father of the accused claims that the young man took such steps for the sake of a scientific experiment - the student allegedly used different psychotypes in communicating with other users.” Those. There were dialogues, there were a lot of them and they discussed exactly the same topics as in the pictures. Otherwise, there would be no need to justify this again by “the study of psychotypes.”

It’s a pity that these dialogues were not presented to the media, maybe this is impossible by law, but in any case there was something worse than the pictures and captions for them.

Those. it turns out that the student was actually convicted not for reposts, be it at least 4, 5 or 10, but for the totality of all factors. The person was convicted of Nazi views, trends, actions expressed in the form of communication, attraction, participation and possibly some kind of planning. What topics and conversations were there in reality? No one knows yet.

This is how it sounds in the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation:
"When deciding whether the actions of a person who has posted any information or expressed his attitude towards it on the Internet or other information and telecommunications network are aimed at inciting hatred or enmity, as well as humiliating the dignity of a person or group of persons, one should proceed from the totality of all circumstances of the offense and take into account, in particular, the context, form and content of the information posted, the presence and content of comments or other expressions of attitude towards it."

And the fact that they are trying to present this as “scientific experiments” and “the study of psychotypes” is a very good excuse. What if his thesis topic was “Drug trafficking in modern realities?” Would he try selling drugs? Do you yourself believe in some kind of diploma and “study of psychotypes”? Or maybe someone will study the “principles of Islamic terrorism” in practice?

It is clearly visible that the young man has almost formed his views on the world order. And perhaps these 2.5 years NOT PRISONS, but colony settlements saved his life and he did not die somewhere with the jihadists in Syria or the Nazis in Ukraine.

A. MITNOVITSKAYA: What are people imprisoned for these days, if we are talking about reposting, about publishing some information on social networks? What can you do while it’s still possible, and what should you absolutely not do?

E. KORCHAGO: Statistics say that in 2015, more than seven hundred people across the country were convicted under this article. This is twice as much as in the previous year 2014. I recommend that listeners be very careful about reposts and likes on social networks, especially if they do not plan to post any extremist symbols or incite ethnic hatred. However, just two days ago, the Supreme Court adopted a resolution of the Plenum and indicated that before passing guilty verdicts, it is necessary to carefully examine the matter. Indeed, there is a witch hunt going on, a struggle for statistics, for increasing indicators. Our law enforcement agencies like to report for the fact that they have identified yet more extremists. The Supreme Court indicated that it is necessary to take into account the entirety of the circumstances and very carefully examine whether a repost or like really constitutes extremism and is aimed at inciting hatred.

A.M.: Where is this line? What is extremism and what is not?

E.K.: The line is quite simple if our law enforcement officers and judges want to see it. If this is done consciously, for example, there is correspondence, the citizen’s opinion is clearly expressed that he hates someone, invites others to hate someone, proposes actions directed against someone. Definitely, in principle, there cannot be any extremism in a repost. The Supreme Court said this.

Not enough reposts, not enough likes! It is necessary to prove that the person had the goal of inciting some kind of hatred

Evgeniy Korchago

I.P.: What if the correspondence is private, not in comments, but in direct messages, in private messages?

E.K.: I don’t recommend writing everything you want. The fact is that incitement to hatred and extremism can occur in relation to even one person. Freedom of speech is a relative concept. In Europe and the USA, freedom of speech is limited by the freedom of others. If we are talking about a legitimate discussion: about expressing one’s opinion, about agreeing or disagreeing with something, this is possible. But if we say, let’s cut someone’s head off!.. Believe me, in no civilized country in the world will you escape responsibility for this. Value judgments should not be criminally or otherwise punishable unless they are expressed in a negative form and do not entail another crime.

I.P.: What about negative value judgments?

E.K.: Value judgments cannot be extremism, but value judgments can humiliate and insult another person.

A.M.: Someone complained about poor service in a taxi. And under such a post a comment may appear, saying that all taxi drivers are scoundrels, especially those who come from such and such a region. What to do with this?

E.K.: There is no crime here. If you wrote about a specific taxi driver, you can write what you are unhappy with, but if you call him, for example, “Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov is a scoundrel,” he may file a statement to hold you accountable. You insulted him by calling him a scoundrel. This is not a criminal offense, but such an article is in the Administrative Code. Scoundrel is not a word that can be used to judge another person.