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Tangled Web

Last year, I wrote about Russia's "human bots," aka its 30-ruble army -- online commentators who were paid to trawl the web and comment on articles critical of the Kremlin.
Much like China's 50-cent party, these online commentators are paid a few hundred dollars to leave 70 comments a day from 50 different accounts. Hard to pin exactly on the Kremlin (it's the type of shady public-private partnership the Kremlin excels at), but entirely consistent with the Russian authorities' approach to the Internet: less filtering, more narrative-shaping.

There are now more details about how exactly this process works, after a group of Anonymous hackers released private e-mails allegedly from the pro-Kremlin group, Nashi.
The group has uploaded hundreds of emails it says are to, from and between Vasily Yakemenko, the first leader of the youth group Nashi – now head of the Kremlin's Federal Youth Agency – its spokeswoman, Kristina Potupchik, and other activists. The emails detail payments to journalists and bloggers, the group alleges.
[…]
Apparently sent between November 2010 and December 2011, the emails appear to confirm critics' longstanding suspicions that the group uses sinister methods, funded by the Kremlin, to attack perceived enemies and pay for favourable reports while claiming that Putin's popularity is unassailable.

They provide particular insight into the group's strategy to boost pro-Putin coverage on the internet, which in contrast to television is seen as being ruled by the opposition. Several emails sent from activists to Potupchik include price lists for pro-Putin bloggers and commenters, indicating that some are paid as much as 600,000 roubles (£12,694) for leaving hundreds of comments on negative press articles on the internet. One email, sent to Potupchik on 23 June 2011, suggests that the group planned to spend more than R10m to buy a series of articles about its annual Seliger summer camp in two popular Russian tabloids, Moskovsky Komsomolets and Komsomolskaya Pravda, and the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Arkady Khantsevich, deputy editor of Nezavisimaya Gazeta, denied that his journalists accepted money for articles, a widespread practice in post-Soviet Russia.
As Miriam Elder points out in "The Guardian" story, in the past pro-Putin stunts "advertised as spontaneous acts by average citizens were in fact orchestrated by Nashi."

If you look at much of the pro-Kremlin activism, it does have the look and feel of astroturf.

For example this "viral" video of oppositionists praying in front of the U.S. Embassy popped up on a recently created YouTube channel without any other content and received a relatively small amount of clicks. It only really surfaced after a report on the state-controlled RT.

Or there's this video of a Tajik guy singing Putin's praises and staring longingly at the Kremlin. Nothing is known of the singer, and he appears to have emerged from nowhere.

The sham is mirrored offline with the Kremlin bussing in people from the provinces, getting people's employers to pressure them to attend, and even reportedly paying for protesters.

The Kremlin is also pursuing other avenues of engagement, notably a new crowd-sourced platform online, Russia Without Fools, where concerned citizens get to bitch about bureaucratic ineptitude and crumbling infrastructure.

Essentially it's a slick parody of OpenGov, an Internet-age spin on the "if only the tsar knew" theory, where the focus of Russians' anger wasn't their leader with all his God-given grace but instead the bumbling and corrupt local officials.
"Meeting For Putin"
"Meeting For Putin"
With broadcast and print media largely under state control, the Russian Internet has been a key platform for opposition activism. Ahead of antigovernment protests on February 4, there has been a flowering of visual art largely spread through social networks. Slickly produced animations parody the country's leadership and mashed-up digital images give a contemporary spin to Russia's authoritarian history. There has been a circular and reciprocal relationship between online and offline activism: slogans might start on the Internet, appear on protesters' signs, get snapped by smartphone cameras, and make their way back to the Internet again to be remixed into new digital creations. Here are some of the best examples we've come across.
'March 4…Amputation'




Lego Politicians
Real audio from Putin's "meet-the-nation" call-in program, but with Lego figures taking the starring roles.
'Elections 2132: I Will Lift Russia Off Its Knees'









Putin And The Paratroopers
Since going online on January 26 it has received nearly 800,000 views. With sharp lyrics, the song claims that Putin has destroyed the armed forces. The song certainly pulls no punches: "We won’t let you keep lying, we won’t let you keep stealing. We’re liberated troops who defended the motherland." The paratroopers have reportedly agreed to perform at the February 4 antigovernment rally.
'Grandpa With The Condom Tattoo'
An atmospheric pastiche of the movie poster for "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," "Grandpa With The Condom Tattoo," borrows the tagline, "What is hidden in snow, comes forth in the thaw" and features a glassy-eyed, down-and-out Putin. Lurking in the background there is a shadowy figure, representing Central Election Commission Chairman Vladimir Churov, who has been vilified by the opposition as a puppet master or sorcerer. The text at the bottom of the poster reads: "Famous columnist Vladimir Putin and heterosexual hacker Vladimir Churov are not investigating the disappearance of [opposition politician] Grigory Yavlinsky from the list of Russian presidential candidates and have discovered that the recent crime is linked to a series of ritual killings."
'Putin -- Our President'

The Ruling Tandem On Board The Titanic

Putin and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as captains on a sinking ship. The closing titles read "Don’t let yourself be betrayed. Say 'No' to the Popular Front," a reference to the broad coalition of pro-Kremlin groupings.

Phallic Symbols
Anarchist collective Voina has taken their visual art to the streets, most notoriously by painting a 65-meter penis on a raised drawbridge facing the St. Petersburg headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB). Banksy was impressed.


'No! Honor Among Officers'





Rally For Putin

Lenin's Mausoleum...
...with the word "Putin" photoshopped in.


And From The Kremlin...

Opposition activists aren't alone in their use of the Internet and digital tools for campaigning. Pro-Kremlin groups have also produced a slew of campaign virals.
Russia's Opposition Praying To The U.S. Embassy
World Of Warcraft Kremlin Style
Tapping into the huge popularity of "World of Warcraft," a multiplayer, online role-playing game, Medvedev the "orc" battles it out against Putin the troll. The cartoonist, Sergey Kalenik, told state-sponsored TV station RT: “The personalities of the two leaders excellently match their Warcraft characters. Putin is tough and aggressive. Medvedev is calm, quiet, and clever. He is brutal although he looks very much like an intellectual."
Putin's Army

The apparent message is that the best way to celebrate the stability brought by Putin (and to ensure its continuation) is to use Apple products and take off your clothes. (Its antithesis is no doubt this perfomance by the all-girl punk group Pussy Riot in front of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow.)



Thanks to @PowerVertical and @RusPoliceWatch for their help putting this together. Seen any more good ones? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter, @lukeallnutt

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