Russians Didn’t Need Facebook to Overthrow the Tsar, Melnik Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 2 – Clearly fearful that the Internet constitutes a threat to his regime because of its capacity to spread ideas and organize people, Vladimir Putin has now signed into law a measure that seeks to cut off the Russian net from the worldwide network of which it has been a part. Amusingly, the Kremlin posted his decision on the Internet.

            Many have suggested that this isolationist drive will either have counterproductive consequences or simply won’t work because Russians will find clever workarounds. But commentator Aleksandra Melnik underscores the real problem for Putin: he has forgotten that “tsarism was overthrown without Facebook” and his regime could be as well (rusmonitor.com/carizm-byl-svergnut-bez-pomoshhi-facebook-pochemu-suverennyjj-internet-ne-pomozhet-putinu.html).

                If one cuts through the official explanations for this action, she says, one sees that its real purpose is to give the powers that be the ability, “in the case of the rise of massive anti-government actions, to interfere with the ability of people to use social networks for the coordination of their activities.” 

            That might be a sensible notion, Melnik continues, but clearly “the Kremlin has forgotten that when a people, including the Russians, is driven to despair, it hasn’t needed social networks or the Internet in the past and won’t be prevented from rising in the future just because it can’t “sign on.”

            Consequently, “cutting the Runet off from the rest of the Internet will not help the Putin regime. More than that, this step may lead to directly opposite consequences. People accustomed to sit in their social networks and get information from them, will, if the net is down go out into the streets in still greater numbers.”

            They will use “alternative communications channels” including portable radio stations, messengers and other devices which will work even if the Internet goes down.  If the Putin regime wants to save itself using only technology rather than changing its policies, it will have to do more than this.

            It must keep its focus on the fact that “tsarism was overthrown without the use of Facebook.”