The Arab-European Association for Media and Communication Researchers

Evgenia Shikina, Victor Petrichenko In the late 2010s, Russia experienced an increase in Internet penetration: from 25% in 2008 to 53% in 2012. At that time, the Internet was almost unregulated in the country, a truly free space. So, it became a platform to voice political dissent. Civil activists were actively using Livejournal, Twitter, Facebook and other platforms to spread their ideas. After the unfair parliamentary elections of December 2011, protests erupted in Moscow.Social media played a crucial role in this. Many demonstrations, including the so-called Bolotnaya protest, were born through Facebook. The journalist Mikhail Fishman, who participated in those…