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Things Russian People Want Off The Internet: Pussy Riot, Gay Porn, Foreign News

​Russia is increasingly censoring its internet—and the Russian people might like it?

​Russia is increasingly censoring its internet—and the Russian people might like it.

A somewhat surprising survey by researchers at Ohio State and the University of Pennsylvania published this week found that ​many Russians are in favor of censoring the internet, and that the only thing that would actually inspire a real backlash from the people would be the wholesale shutdown of the internet, a la North Korea.

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Just 11 percent of Russians think there should be no censorship online whatsoever, and half of all Russians believe that the internet needs to be censored.

There are a few reasons for this thinking, argues Erik Nisbet, who conducted the survey in Moscow by talking to a representative sample of Russians from 80 different regions in the country.

"Historically, they've had a monarchy, a czar, the Soviet Union—there's no history of democracy," he told me. "If you look at other polls, two thirds of the population would prefer a 'strong man' type of government to democracy. They're OK with this type of government control."

Nisbet says that there's a long history of public polling in Russia, and that there's little chance that respondents answered untruthfully because of fear of government reprisal.

Let's drill down into the findings a little more:

Heavy internet users prefer less censorship

This isn't surprising, of course, but Nisbet says there's an age gap that's somewhat promising for the prospect of free speech in the future. "Younger people are more skeptical of Russian censorship and control," Nisbet said.

Russians believe foreign governments use the internet against Russia

Or, a plurality does, at least: "You can't discount the idea that Snowden is in Russia, and the idea that the US has been corrupting data worldwide has this ripple effect on Russia as well," he said.

Russians think foreign media should be censored

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This surprised Nisbet the most about the study: 45 percent of Russians think foreign news websites should be blocked or censored. He says Russians have been conditioned to be distrustful of other countries, and, because the Russian government uses the media as a propaganda arm, they assume other countries must as well.

"The Russian government has claimed foreign media is undermining Russia, and, in the wake of Crimea and Ukraine, the Russian government has pushed that angle even more," he said. "In the wake of war, they equate foreign media as being propaganda arms of a foreign government."

Russians want to ​censor Pussy Riot, gay porn, and ​social network groups that organize protests

The poll asked respondents if they would be okay with Russia censoring or blocking the above five types of media. A plurality agreed, with only about a quarter actually disagreeing with censorship for each.

Russian internet is more insulated than the internet in other countries that censor

"In some countries, like Turkey in particular, the internet and social media has become more politicized, there's a lot more mobilization around internet freedom than in Russia," Nisbet said. "But Turkey is more connected to the wider internet than Russia, which has this large network of mostly Russian websites. Turkey is connected to NATO and the rest of Europe, it's more connected to the wider world."

Russians aren't going to act

This isn't changing anytime soon: "The only thing that made it seem like Russians would act, would turn out in Turkey-style protests, would be if Russia turned off the internet altogether," he said.

Well, Russia probably isn't going to shut the entire internet down, but there's rumblings that ​Facebook could be blocked entirely, so we may soon see if that's enough to spur Russian people to action.