The CIS region is experiencing a general trend toward greater regulation and control of the national information space, which includes the Internet. Although most CIS countries do not practice the substantive or pervasive filtering—Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan excepted—Internet content control through regulation or intimidation is growing throughout the region. In most cases, the legislative and judicial framework for filtering (or other restrictions) is ambiguous and open to interpretation. Moreover the laws are often unevenly applied, with “flexible” implementation often paired with other more subtle (but effective) measures designed to promote self-restraint (or self–censorship) of both ISP providers as well as content producers. Information control—in particular the protection of national informational space—is clearly an issue of concern throughout the CIS, and has encouraged more stringent attention to telecommunications surveillance (as has been happening in other parts of the world, most notably the United States). In addition, measures to protect regimes in power and stifle opposition are often couched in the language of “national security,” and have resulted in the development of new measures and techniques aimed at temporally "shaping" access to information at strategic moments, such as “event-based filtering.” Another innovation that merits further investigation is “upstream filtering.” Although these new measures are not present in all CIS countries, they are indicative of a new seriousness with which strategies for information control are being developed.
In 2007 a number of critical elections will take place in Russia and several other CIS countries. In the Russian case, exiled billionaire Boris Berezovsky has expressed his intent to overturn the existing regime. The Internet and other forms of communications technologies are expected to play an important role in the electoral process, and as such they will no doubt be the object of many actors’ attention.
Last, the re-emergence of stronger states in the region following more than a decade of transition, and general unhappiness concerning U.S. policies in the region (which have, over the past ten years, promoted media freedom and an active if foreign-funded civil society), is also sparking a degree of “blow-back” and renewed competition between East and West. For example, ONI research found that many “.mil” sites are not reachable in the CIS, suggesting that these may be subject to “supply-side” filtering by U.S. authorities.19 Between greater assertiveness on the part of CIS states and the stimulus of renewed interstate competition, the CIS is a region to watch as a global actor shaping norms that will govern the Internet into the future.
Carnegie Russia Analysis
Originally Posted by Surferbeetle
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