Internet activists have carried out several successful campaigns in recent weeks, targeting corruption and crime.
Because of investigations last month by Runet users, the leader of pro-Kremlin youth group Young Guard, Ruslan Gattarov, and his deputy, Vladimir Burmatov, are resigning. And authorities arrested men who had been terrorizing drivers in the Urals region. Those men turned out to be relatives of United Russia deputies.
In both cases, regular people sitting at computers made the difference. Their main weapons were their abilities to search publicly available information and to collect and analyze facts.
First, they proved that Young Guard members had doctored photographs and video clips of their “heroic” firefighting feats.
Shortly thereafter, Chelyabinsk blogger Valery Nazarov (piligrim_67) held a “masterclass in crime-solving for the Yekaterinburg police force.” With help from his online readers, Nazarov identified the young men who had been attacking drivers in the Urals, published their photos and even uncovered their family ties to local ruling party deputies.
“I would not call what we are doing investigations,” Nazarov said. “It is, rather, trial by network. I post the topic, people read about it, then they react."
"If you react loudly, then the authorities react, too, because it is impossible for them not to respond," he said. "We have now largely replaced the court of public opinion. We also work much faster and more efficiently than the government.”
Blogger investigations aren't news for network users themselves, but they are becoming more widespread, frequent and difficult to ignore. The authorities' responses, though they are often slow and inadequate, seem to have testified to the effectiveness of these online campaigns.