The Telegraph
Kremlin expands surveillance on Russians’ music and taxi journeys
James Kilner – July 8, 2023
The Kremlin will soon begin restricting Russians’ music playlists and tracking their taxi journeys in real time as it ramps up state surveillance two weeks after a failed rebellion.
Yandex Music, Russia’s most popular music streaming service, has said it will create a “safe environment” by blocking “dangerous” content, a move that activists have criticised.
“Recommendations on music services are nothing more than the automation of censorship using algorithms,” said Sarkis Darbinyan, a lawyer at Russian Roskom Svoboda which is a Russian NGO.
The music streaming service is part of the Yandex group of companies. Once dubbed the “Russian Google”, Yandex provides Russians with navigation tools, internet searches, a taxi-hailing app, food delivery services and everything else in between.
But analysts have also said that the Kremlin uses Yandex to spy on Russians and spread its propaganda. Part of this propaganda has been to promote pro-war singers and sideline anti-war artists but this is the first time that it will impose restrictions on people’s music choices.
To ‘protect’ listeners
Yandex Music said that the restrictions were designed to protect listeners from racist and Nazi-themed songs but Ms Darbinyan from Roskomsvoboda said that this was just a smokescreen.
“Musicians who have declared their civil and anti-war position have already essentially been thrown off the Russian stage, forbidden to perform and to earn their bread,” she said. “Now, I’m afraid this practice of blacklisting will affect all Russian streaming platforms.”
The Kremlin has banned parts of the internet including YouTube, while Spotify and other Western music streaming services stopped operating in Russia after the Russian invasion last year.
The new restrictions came after Vladimir Putin faced down a mutiny two weeks ago by his former mercenary commander Yevgeny Prigozhin, and analysts have said he needs to reimpose his authority.
And this means more censorship and more power for his favoured FSB intelligence agency.
Round-the-clock access to data
On Friday, the Russian government said that it had given the FSB the right to monitor people’s movements on taxi aggregation services.
Russian opposition media described the new taxi censorship laws as effectively giving the FSB “24/7 remote access” to passenger data.
One of the FSB’s main roles is to monitor the Russian population for any signs of dissent, and the Wall Street Journal has now reported that foreigners fall under an intensified surveillance operation.
It said that a special FSB unit called the DKRO monitors foreign nationals that enter Russia.
They also often play intimidatory mind games such as breaking into hotel rooms or apartments, moving bookcases and leaving smoked cigarette butts in bathrooms and faeces in suitcases, the newspaper reported.
One of the Wall Street Journal’s Russia correspondents, Evan Gershkovich, was arrested in March and accused of spying. He strongly denies the accusation.