“Keep your enemies close, and your Facebook friends even closer”

Why do Russians use Facebook differently to Westerners? The answer explains why the Kremlin is so unfriendly.

Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook 12 years ago; it only arrived in Russia in 2008, and it has taken up residency in a special niche in our media space. Sociological data show that in the Russian-language zone most posts relate to business, news or discussions of events of general public interest. But in the West, the social network is more used for posting personal details (pussycats, food and relationships …).

In 2014, according to Mail.ru Group, the most active Russian users of Facebook were aged 25-44, mostly professionals and civil servants. The popularity of topics was divided along the following lines:

15-20% – posts about personal matters (a few pussycats, food, relationships, ‘where I am now’ etc)

40% – reposts of news, and comments on events considered of some wider significance

40-45% – personal comments posted from the location of a given event, or about emergency situations, and consumer experience of goods and services, together with photographs.

A survey by Brand Analytics showed that in the winter of 2015/16 the monthly numbers for Facebook users were 21.6 million – nearly 15% of the entire population – which is still less than half the figures for the Russian site Vkontakte (46.6 million), but several times more than Twitter (7.7 million). Over this period, there was a gradual reduction in the activity of Russian Twitter users. Russian Facebook users, on the other hand, increased; and “the growth in figures relates first and foremost to work contacts and to business. An analysis of business topics in social networks shows that Facebook often has more than 30% of the overall volume of social media figures on this subject.”

Social psychologist Aleksey Roshchin considers that Russian Facebook is unique, chiefly because Russians have less experience in offline ‘horizontal’ links than people in the West. “The place of social networks in Russia is so different to how things happened in the West that they have become an almost completely different product. This is what happened initially with LiveJournal, and then with Facebook. In Russia, social networks to a certain extent make up for the lack of a real public life and for the deterioration of media outlets.”

Indeed, Roshchin thinks that Russians’ lack of faith in their media is a significant factor. “Compared to the West, there are not many media outlets in Russia, which means that completely ordinary people take on the role of quasi-media outlets for a limitless circle of friends … which is why each and every blogger is practically his or her own Pravda newspaper, or at least regards themselves as such. This is the context for our Facebook life.”

Roschin says that fear of ‘unknown people’ is typical for Russians. Here, Facebook can be of help, assisting its users to get together online. “The situation has not improved much over the past twenty post-Soviet years. People feel that they live in a kind of vacuum. If we look at what is called ‘offline,’ anyone who isn’t a relation or colleague is an aggressive stranger with whom there are no particular feelings of closeness. This is where the communicative function [of Facebook] comes in. Virtual discussions create an illusion of safety, because communication with ‘unknown people’ is itself traumatic for an ordinary post-Soviet man in the street.

“Any ‘unknown person’ is regarded as a potential danger and threat, so it’s considered better not to engage. Virtual communication can partly remove the fear of strangers. In social networks, people have a unique opportunity to communicate widely, which they don’t have in ordinary life. And this carries the seeds of self-organisation: finding like-minded people, putting together a group and, the ultimate, even taking the decision for some kind of social action.”

That last remark explains why the Kremlin is hell-bent on being as unfriendly to Facebook as it can. What the Russian government fears most of all is any kind of social action that might become political.

Putin appointed in January of this year German Klimenko as his Internet Adviser precisely because he is a Facebook user, although one whose task is to be as unfriendly and disliked as possible. But we should not expect to see a Chinese-style firewall, rather expect local and, at first glance, haphazard obstacles put up in the way of opposition social network groups, as well as the development of semi-concealed interventions placed in the way of Western-oriented Russian speakers. In such a situation, for the Kremlin, understanding the Russian-speaking Facebook community is all about keeping one’s enemies close, and one’s friends even closer.