• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer, December 9, 2011

While the debate over social media’s utility as a political organizing tool continues, repressive foreign governments are paying it the highest compliment by trying to shut it down. In the latest example, Russia’s Federal Security Bureau asked Russia’s largest social network, VKontakte, to block protesters and opposition groups from using the network, hoping to stifle protests that erupted after a disputed election that returned Vladimir Putin's party to power, with a reduced majority.

Interestingly, this isn’t the only place social media played a role in the Russian political controversy: the protests got a crucial infusion of popular support following the jailing of a well-known blogger and anti-corruption campaigner, Aleksei Navalny. Although Putin tried to blame the protests on manipulation by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- a classic repressive move, attempting to discredit domestic opposition as stooges of malevolent outsiders -- it seems more likely that the social media campaign is a homegrown movement, especially considered alongside some other negative expressions of public opinion, including the boos which met Putin at a recent sporting event.

The Russian FSB’s attempt to block opposition groups on social media is somewhat reminiscent of the heavy-handed strategy adopted by the defunct Egyptian regime of Hosni Mubarak in the face of massive protests at the beginning of this year. There’s also similarity in the unintended consequences of jailing online organizers, turning them into symbolic leaders of protest movements -- Navalny in Russia, Google exec Wael Ghonim in Egypt.

The situations aren’t entirely analogous, of course, as Mubarak’s secret police succeeded in essentially shutting down the entire Internet during the protests -- but also failed to stop protests which were much larger and more sustained than those in Russia. Nonetheless, in both cases the attempts at repression were unintended tributes to the power of social media for organizing public dissent.

Meanwhile the Chinese government is also very nervous about social media. In July of this year the Christian Science Monitor reported that Chinese opposition politics is being revitalized by influential bloggers. And in July 2010 the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences released a report, titled “Development of China's New Media,” sounding the alarm over the subversive potential of online social media, which the authors warn is being used by Western governments (including the United States) to foment political unrest inside China. Among its key suggestions: “We must pay attention to the potential risks and threats to state security as the popularity of social networking sites continues to grow. We must immediately step up supervision of social networking sites.”