Ticker Views
Russians turn to secret emojis to evade Putin’s police state
With the Russian government clamping down on protest against the invasion of Ukraine, demonstrators are turning to other methods to organise their protests.
With Facebook and Twitter shut down, and the ever growing presence of Russian surveillance, protestors are using emojis to organise their movement.
The story of how Russian protestors communicate will be remembered for their ingenuity – and the rise of emojis.
These modern day hieroglyphics are allowing protesters to evade the surveillance state that has tried to crack down on dissent.
In late February, this image started to spread on Russian social media.
It’s shows the Russian poet Pushkin, the number seven, and rows and rows of the person walking emoji.
What could it mean? Well to those with prior knowledge, it was directions for a protest at Pushkin Square in Moscow, and a call to protest against the Russian government’s actions.
Unfortunately, this picture turned to this on the ground – as police far out numbered protesters.
The emojis made reference to a code used for years in Russia to organise to protests – one so well known to the authorities, that it’s barely code at all.
Protests are banned
But with unauthorised protests banned by Putin’s regime since 2014, demonstrators are turning to new methods to evade detection.
Anyone caught protesting faces 15 days in detention, and recently, the threat of being sent to the front line in Ukraine.
But that threat hasn’t deterred every day Russians from speaking out.
On one occasion, a protest organiser who sent out a cryptic emoji was paid a visit by authorities the next morning and detained for several days. Some protesters have even been arrested over a single tweet.
Two weeks into the war in Ukraine, and more than 14-thousand people have been detained in Russia for protesting – and the shut down of Tik Tok, facebook and independent Russian media have only made it harder for protesters to gather and evade authorities.