NEWSWATCH: “Hardliners urge Kremlin crackdown on social media; Russia has introduced increasingly draconian web laws but some are pushing for more” – Financial Times/ Max Seddon

“… success in using social media to mobilise youthful anti-corruption protesters has sparked calls for the Kremlin to step up internet censorship. … [A]t a censorship conference … Oscar-winning film director Nikita Mikhalkov … showed a documentary that accused … Navalny of luring children to violent protests against … Putin. ‘… [Young people] don’t know any history and they won’t until they get a rubber bat over the head or a bullet to the temple,’ the film-maker said. … Navalny’s corruption investigation into … Medvedev scored 20m views on YouTube, despite a media blackout. Some 45 per cent of Russians now want … Medvedev to resign, according to … the … Levada centre …. Russia began aggressively regulating the internet in 2012, when …Putin’s return to the presidency was opposed by large protests organised on Facebook and VK …. But … Navalny’s success on YouTube has shown the Kremlin that it is still a long way from the Chinese model of all-pervasive censorship. …”

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