Belarusian Telegram channels responded to threats from the authorities to their subscribers
What's happening
On Monday, October 12, the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus adopted a resolution on measures against extremism and the rehabilitation of Nazism, which in fact allows, in particular, criminal prosecution of Belarusian citizens for subscribing to opposition Telegram channels, recognized by the republic's authorities as “extremist”. And although the document does not say anything in plain text about Telegram channels and their subscribers, the statements of the Belarusian security officials soon made only confirmed the fears of the messenger users.
On Thursday, October 14, the head of the commission for combating extremism and the rehabilitation of Nazism in Belarus, Lilia Ananich, said that subscribing to extremist Telegram channels is tantamount to facilitating extremist activities – a criminally punishable crime.
“This is what everyone should hack on the nose. It's time to just stop doing anything in this life, ”Ananich warned her fellow citizens on the air of Radio Sputnik Belarus.
On the same day, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic hastened to announce that the Belarusian security officials know the names of the administrators and participants of all extremist Telegram channels and chats. “The measures we have taken will allow us to pay attention to each subscriber of extremist telegrams and chats and give them a legal assessment,” assured the head of the department of the Main Directorate for Combating Organized Crime and Corruption of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus Vyacheslav Orlovsky.
They won't jail everyone
To date, the Belarusian court has recognized more than 170 channels and chats in Telegram as extremist. These include such large channels as NEXTA-live (952.2 thousand subscribers, hereinafter data from the site tgstat.com as of October 15), Belarus of the Brain (207 thousand) and LUXTA (104.9 thousand subscribers). ).
The administrators of these communities have so far been in no hurry to assess the statements made by the authorities. “First of all, it will be necessary to look at the practice of law enforcement of the new resolution,” Anna Kaltygina, acting editor-in-chief of Zerkalo.io (the new name of the TUT.VY portal), told Gazeta.Ru.
“If you read the resolution, and we did it with lawyers, then it says nothing about the criminal prosecution of subscribers. It is another matter that we have a unique country in which the concept of “legal default” was invented, so in any case it will be necessary to look at the practice of law enforcement, ”she said.
The editorial board of the largest Belarusian Telegram channel NEXTA-live considers the statements of criminal prosecution as an attempt to intimidate the audience and calls the statements “baseless fake”.
It is physically impossible to arrest all subscribers of the channels recognized as extremist, according to the editorial board of NEXTA-live.
“Pro-government propagandists are catastrophically losing to independent media on all fronts, including the number of views and subscribers. The statements of the so-called security officials do not have any legal basis, they simply created a stuffing-in, wanting to reduce the audience of independent media in the telegram, ”said representatives of the Telegram-channel Gazeta.Ru.
Belarusian political scientist Dmitry Bolkunets also pointed to the legal uncertainty of the new resolution, negatively assessing the decision of Minsk.
“Any government is capable of coming up with laws that it considers necessary. In Belarus, legal mechanisms have been inactive for a long time, ”he said.
What threatens
So far, the only consequence that the opposition media of Belarus that have settled in Telegram have faced is the outflow of readers.
Within two days after the publication of the decree, NEXTA-live lost about 28 thousand subscribers. Another “extremist” channel, Zerkalo.io, has about 25 thousand.
The editorial staff of “NEXTA-live” associates the massive unsubscription with the fact that users within Belarus act on the basis of their own security concerns, fearing legal unpredictability.
“People are simply afraid to subscribe to banned Telegram channels, since no one guarantees that their phone will not be suddenly seized by punitive structures. They continue to read the channels, but not subscribe to them. It suits us. The safety of people is above all, ”the editorial office said.
According to Anna Kaltygina of Zerkalo.io, the authorities want to force people to unsubscribe from independent media on Telegram because of their popularity. For this, law enforcement agencies declare criminal liability for subscribers of “prohibited” sources of information.
“If we take, for example, the top 10 most popular Belarusian channels, then there is not a single state media outlet. And by the way, 8 out of 10 channels are recognized as extremist, – said Kaltygina. “As we worked, as we wrote about what is happening in Belarus, we will continue to do so.”
Why the authorities press Telegram channels
“NEXTA-live” is the first Telegram channel that the Belarusian authorities included in the “republican list of extremist materials.” The resource has this status since October 20, 2020. The last channel at the moment recognized as extremist is the channel of the leader of the Belarusian opposition “Svetlana Tikhanovskaya”, which was added to the list on 15 October.
At the same time, the attention of the Belarusian authorities to the messenger has been riveted for a long time, noted Dmitry Bolkunets. According to the political scientist, back in 2019, after the adoption of the Concept of Information Security of the Republic of Belarus, the authorities planned to create a network of pro-government Telegram channels and pro-government bloggers to combat hybrid threats.
“However, the events of 2020 showed that the work was failed and the budget was spent. Lacking the competence of working with modern media and not having new ideas that can be offered to society, the government decided to conserve the old order, ”the political scientist believes.
Many opposition channels in Belarus have significantly increased their audience during the summer protests following the 2020 presidential elections. Some channels coordinated the actions of the protesters, which caused discontent in Minsk. At the peak of the protest activity, the audience of the NEXTA-live channel was up to 2 million subscribers.
The authorities were particularly outraged by the rallies held in the channel to de-anonymize the security officials who took part in the dispersal of the protesters.
The arrests of journalists and bloggers that followed the protests, as well as the blocking of opposition resources, are “a continuation of the campaign of revenge on the part of Alexander Lukashenko against the citizens who destroyed his reputation as a politician,” said Dmitry Bolkunets.
The editors of the Belarus Brain channel also see the motive for revenge in the campaign against Telegram channels.
“The terror of the Belarusian authorities against society is revenge for all protest manifestations since spring 2020.
Then the Belarusians made it clear that Lukashenka had no support at all in the society, – said representatives of the channel's editorial staff. – The myths were broken one by one: “all the village is for him,” “all the pensioners are for him,” “the whole east is for him,” “the whole west is for him,” and so on. It became clear even to the most ardent fans of the dictator that the people were not with him. ”
What's next
The largest Telegram channels in Belarus plan to continue working, despite statements by the authorities about criminal liability for subscribers. The editorial staff of the Belarus Brain channel told Gazeta.Ru that the newspaper has a “well-thought-out strategy of work,” which includes different platforms.
“We have been working on the transition to the new format for several months and will launch it soon. Therefore, the impact on Telegram did not upset us too much. In addition, the outflow of subscribers did not affect the overall reach, that is, the number of active readers of the channel has hardly changed, ”the editorial office said.
The channel's editorial policy will remain the same, despite the fact that the founder of the channel, Dmitry Losik, has been in custody since June 25 last year on charges of inciting social hatred and hatred against government officials and law enforcement agencies.
“Therefore, we will not try to sharply become soft and fluffy. We are loved for the sharp presentation of information, and we will continue in the same spirit, ”the editorial office noted.
The editorial staff of “NEXTA” also plans to continue working, since Telegram remains an important tool for covering the socio-political life of the country and the everyday problems of the citizens of Belarus. The channel's policy, according to the editorial board, will remain the same in order to justify the title of the “first extremist” channel in Belarus and to reveal the most painful topics for Alexander Lukashenko as quickly and efficiently as possible. According to the editorial board, the resolution of the Council of Ministers evokes nothing but laughter.
“We have created three projects on YouTube – NEXTA, NEXTA Life and NEXTA Archive (a channel with archived videos of protests). All of them are very popular and are included in the rating of the main Belarusian media outlets on YouTube, the editorial office noted. – We have a huge feedback from society, every day hundreds of people write to us in the bot and share important information, because they trust us.
We have a reputation for being bitter opponents of the regime. We are doing our best to justify the trust of Belarusians and bring our long-awaited victory closer. “
Dmitry Bolkunets, who maintains an author's Telegram channel with an audience of more than 20 thousand subscribers, expects that his project may soon also be on the list of extremist. However, the political scientist believes that “one blocked resource will be replaced by dozens of new ones.”
The political scientist is sure that the Belarusian authorities will continue to do everything possible to block the opposition in the information space, but this will not completely suppress the protest activity.
“Perhaps, if the authorities decide to completely disconnect Belarus from the Internet, then we will publish wall newspapers and distribute samizdat,” concluded Bolkunets.
