“This is not a phone conversation…”

                                                                        – Soviet saying

Introducing his new book The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia’s Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries at an event at the Frontline Club on Tuesday 29 September, co-author and founder of Agentura.Ru Andrei Soldatov began by saying that to understand modern Russia you must first understand the mentality and historical relationship between citizen, state and surveillance.

“The saying – ‘this is not a phone conversation,’ used by soviet citizens – is still in use today and reflects a continuity of some habits we inherited from the soviet past.”

The impact of this soviet legacy is mirrored in the methods and the principles of the FSB’s modern communication interception systems, as well as the “strange” and complicit relationship between the state military industrial complex and the telecommunications industry in Russia.

Soldatov continued: “The most important principle for the Russian system of surveillance is the back door to all Russian communications, which provides direct access to all servers, all networks on Russia soil.” The country’s revolving door policy between state and private sector results in a “complete lack of resistance, even collusion from the industry itself.”

Furthermore, said Soldatov, the “surveillance mentality” seen today derives more from the soviet approach to control, which prioritised intimidation and self-censorship, than from the use of technology.

“Russia’s system of online surveillance is not very sophisticated. The problem is that the Russian state is extremely skilful in sending a message: ‘You might be spied on… Be careful.’ And in a country with a very recent totalitarian past one needs to be only reminded of what might happen and that is enough.”

@AndreiSoldatov @irinaborogan presenting new book the Red Web in @frontlineclub #russia #putinAtWar pic.twitter.com/jI9W7OnBq0

— Agne Dovydaityte (@AgneDovydaityte) September 29, 2015

Co-author Irina Borogan acknowledged the problems of this soviet legacy and suggested that while the strategy President Putin has tried to apply to the internet is similar to that he successfully used to suppress traditional media in the early 2000s, his basic misunderstanding of how social media works post-Arab Spring leaves room for optimism.

“Once again, the Kremlin’s approach was based more on intimidation than mass oppression or technology. Putin believes that all things exist in a hierarchical structure and if you exert pressure from the top you can rule all things. But this fails to understand the internet as a network, which we all know has no centre – everyone can participate without authorisation.”

For Privacy International researcher Edin Omanovic, from the perspective of the state it is less a problem of a soviet citizen mentality than Putin’s worldview shaped by KGB/FSB surveillance policy.

“It is the narrative between how the horizontal approach to new technology is changing the world and being a force for liberation, versus how new technology is actually a force for oppression.”

Omanovic added that this is not merely a problem confined to Russia, but one that involves the billion-dollar private surveillance industry throughout the world, where cooperation between surveillance manufacturers and state defence contractors is often implicit.

The future of #Russia's internet: walking on the knife's edge – one kept purposefully obscure. http://t.co/LmzbEczf8m

— oDR (@opendemocracyru) September 14, 2015

For the BBC’s former Moscow correspondent and event moderator Daniel Sandford, while the KGB tactic to focus solely on dissident leaders and “well known trouble-makers” combined with often high levels of incompetence led to a certain lack of control, there is a concern that the FSB’s increasing professionalism – and a better organised and resourced state surveillance programme than existed in the 1970s and 80s – will see the state bring the internet under its control as it has done with other traditional media outlets.

Borogan, however, disputed this suggestion, claiming that what differentiates today from the soviet era is that “technology is getting cheaper and cheaper all the time and to install an all-powerful surveillance network throughout the entire country is ever more difficult.”

The widespread nature of internet networks will, in essence, beat Big Brother.

For Tonia Samsonova, foreign correspondent for Echo Moskvy, it is the actual goal of decision makers who are establishing the surveillance state that is the issue.

“One part of [these people] are actually working for the government, for the security of the regime, the others think of their job as a business. So one might ask what are the real goals of those guys? Are they to protect Putin, protect themselves as a class or to make as much money as they want?”

For Samsonova the danger lies not in the cynical surveillance measures of today, but in data departments and analytical models which can be used to predict issues and trends before they happen and to preemptively target potential trouble-makers.

Screening: The Term + Q&A

Friday 17 October 2014, 7:00 PM

The Term tells the unique inside story of the Russian opposition movement as Vladimir Putin settles into the Kremlin for his third term, through exclusive access to anti-corruption blogger Aleksei Navalny and other key opposition figures, including Putin’s god-daughter, Ksenia Sobchak, and Solidarnost leader, Ilya Yashin. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with with producer Max Tuula via Skype.
 

Insight with Michael Žantovský: Havel and the Velvet Revolution

Monday 3 November 2014, 7:00 PM

Twenty-five years ago in December 1989, Václav Havel was elected as President of Czechoslovakia, marking the end of the Velvet Revolution and with it, the culmination of 41 years of communist rule. By his side throughout was Michael Žantovský, Havel’s press secretary, speech-writer, translator and close friend. Žantovský will be joining us in conversation with Edward Lucas, senior editor at The Economist, to bear witness to Havel’s extraordinary life as documented in his new book Havel: A Life, and to share his own experiences of living through the Velvet Revolution and the formation of the Czech Republic.

First Wednesday Screening: 1989

Wednesday 5 November 2014, 7:00 PM

On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we are pleased to be part of a pan-European simultaneous screening of the new documentary 1989 by award-winning director Anders Østergaard. The film 1989 is a high-politics drama about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain. Østergaard recreates the events of 1989 and invites the audience into secret meeting rooms through a mixture of testimonials, archive material, and reconstructed dialogues of the key political players.

Screening: Four Velvet Men Then and Now – Jan Ruml + discussion

Friday 14 November 2014, 7:00 PM

For 20 years, director Pavel Koutecký and later director Jan Šikl followed the lives of four remarkable men who played key roles in the ending of communism in Czechoslovakia in November 1989. What followed was a period of change and transition, offering opportunities to those who were ready to seize them. This screening will be followed by a discussion on the challenges societies are faced with after a regime change.

These events are part of the Made in Prague Festival, 17 October – 30 November 2014.

A week after International Women’s Day, women were still very much in the spotlight for the screening of Forbidden Voices, a documentary about three female dissident bloggers at the Frontline Club on Friday 15 March.

Director Barbara Miller’s powerful film follows three women – from Cuba, China and Iran – who defy the restrictions of their countries’ media and fight for the right to freedom of speech. Miller and Farnaz Seifi, the Iranian blogger, were there to talk about the film after the screening.

Following each of the women throughout their daily lives, the film explicitly shows the government crackdowns they face. Cuban blogger, Yoani Sánchez, was publicly labelled a Washington puppet. Seifi, was detained and questioned under duress, and Chinese blogger Zeng Jinyan was intimidated into staying indoors.

When an audience member asked both Miller and Seifi which of the regimes they think is most repressive, both struggled to pinpoint one. Miller said:

“In a way they’re really similar, but in a way they’re really different. For example for the government of Cuba it’s really important to keep this smiley place. Iran and China don’t care so much about the way the world looks at them.”

Seifi added:

“I think the role China played is really important as China is the father of censorship and filtering in the world. Countries like my country, Iran, owe most of the knowledge they have for censoring, tracing and filtering to the Chinese Government.”

Miller explained that the process of filming proved very difficult due to the women being put under constant surveillance:

“We filmed in all three countries without permission – it would have been impossible to get the proper journalist permission for filming dissidents. So we visited all three countries as tourists….”

“In Iran it was just the cameraman that went and he was arrested twice in four days. In China we went three times and we weren’t able to film with Jinyan because state security was there day and night, and so in the end she had to film most of the material herself.”

When a member of the audience asked Seifi if she felt there was something particularly different about the blog as a voice of dissidence in repressive societies, she replied:

“Sometimes you feel so alone and ask is it worth it? Is it going to change anything? But I think these new ways of communication help those who try and struggle to make a change to feel like they got recognition. And that recognition gives you much more strength and motivation to continue.”

Miller added:

“All three women said they don’t want a revolution – what they want is change. What their blogs started was a dialogue, and it’s a way of changing the whole way of thinking, discussing and communicating.”

Miller explained that focusing on only women bloggers was not her original intention:

“When I started I wasn’t sure who to focus on, I was looking at male bloggers as well. But I became interested in how blogging gave vocal opportunity for women, for example in Iran, to really speak out in society. Also in Cuba most of the people in politics are men; the same thing in China.”

“I also liked the way women use political blogs in a really personal way – they are just talking about their lives and it’s just the truth. That’s what these regimes find dangerous.”

To find out more information see the documentary website forbiddenvoices.net or search #forbiddenvoices.