Regional departments of Roskomnadzor made daily reports about “protest moods” in social networks and the media, which were sent to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB, the National Guard, the regional administrations and the Kremlin. This is reported by Meduza and The Intercept.
The publications analyzed the March data leak from the Roskomnadzor department for Bashkortostan, posted on the project website ddosecrets.com. They found that the reports were made through the «Operational Interaction Room» system. Although there is no such name in the list on the Roskomnadzor website, the system was mentioned several times in their reports by the agency itself and the Yugra administration.
The Roskomnadzor departments made four types of reports — about «facts of destabilization of Russian society», «protest moods», «interethnic relations» and «information space» in the regions. They were both daily and monthly.
The earliest reports in the leak were dated September 2020 (.docx). Recent reports on «destabilization» cited publications and posts on topics such as «criticism of the authorities», «anti-militarism», «activities of non-systemic opposition», «distortion of history [of the Great Patriotic War]», «sexual and other «freedoms»» and «legalization of soft drugs».
Reports on «protest moods» also contained the item «information about planned actions».
At the end of the reports, statistics were provided on the sources of publications included in the report — regional media, large publics in social networks, pages of politicians and their audience. In the presentation of the Novosibirsk department of Roskomnadzor in 2020 with the reporting methodology (.pptx), the description of the NTN-24 TV channel was cited as an example. Their materials are marked «criticism of local authorities», «criticism of federal authorities», «criticism of the electoral process (constitutional amendments )” and “criticism of health care (coronavirus).”
“Perhaps it was Roskomnadzor with its reports that was the real initiator of the mass media purge at the beginning of the war,” suggests Meduza. At the same time, formally, the decisions of the Prosecutor General's Office were the basis for blocking federal and regional publications, including Mediazona. -publish-photo__image» data-type=»photo» data-slate-custom=»{«imgSrc»:»https://s3.zona.media/entry/e4f765df21a76c3c9bb084681a22929a»,»alt»:»» ;}» alt=»1″ />
Screenshot from the «report on monitoring the facts of the destabilization of Russian society in the Novosibirsk region» dated September 2020.