Russia launches new system to scan the internet for banned content

‘Oculus’ will look for dissent and ‘LGBT propaganda’, according to officials

A child using a laptop computer (Dominic Lipinski/PA) (PA Wire)

Russia has launched a new system to scan the internet for banned content.

The system, named Oculus, will be looking through posts to find dissent and “LGBT propaganda”, officials said.

It is able to read text as well as examine images to look for illegal scenes, the Interfax news agency reported. It is able to look through more than 200,000 images each day, taking about three seconds to scan each picture, it reported.

The internet has become a major battleground in Russia and elsewhere as officials look to stop the proliferation of both illegal content and those fomenting protests. Recent months have brought a number of internet shutdowns and censorship that have stopped people from getting to certain sites – and sometimes cutting off web access entirely.

Since sending its armed forces into Ukraine in February, Moscow has suppressed political opposition and independent media inside Russia that had survived previous clampdowns, and amplified a conservative, nationalist narrative that frowns on “non-traditional” lifestyles and orientations.

Oculus “automatically detects offences such as extremist content, calls for illegal mass gatherings or suicide, pro-drug content, LGBT propaganda and so on,” Interfax quoted the Main Radio Frequency Centre (MRFC), part of the communications supervisor Roskomnadzor, as saying.

“Since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, ‘fakes’ have proliferated and spread at an unprecedented rate, aiming to replace real facts with a specially constructed reality,” it said.

“The creation of this system is our response to provocations and anti-Russian actions on the part of foreign resources.”

Russia has accused the West of promoting the spread of what it calls fake information about its “special military operation” in Ukraine in an attempt to discredit Russia’s armed forces.

It passed legislation last year imposing fines on people spreading such information and cracked down on social media sites and news outlets that share content at odds with Moscow’s official line on the conflict. All

Russia’s television channels are state-run and closely follow the government’s narrative.

Another new law provides for fines for any individual or organisation found to promote “LGBT propaganda”, a move that critics say outlaws any public mention of lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender people, following what are officially termed “non-traditional” lifestyles.

The Main Radio Frequency Centre did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Additional reporting by Reuters