MOSCOW – Thousands of Russian Internet users have flocked to the Clubhouse audio-based chat app, which has become an ideal place to live in an authoritarian political system.
This week was a deadlock with Clubhouse news. On Saturday, Elon Musk in public guest Russian President Vladimir Putin for an in-app conversation. Another passionate user of the Clubhouse is Luiza Rozova, a 17-year-old woman claimed by the independent Russian press as Putin’s illegitimate daughter. Recently, she used the platform to share ideas about her university specialty, her aspirations for a fashionable career and her apparent affinity for conspiracy theories, unleashed. And in an unusual public broadcast of views on a typical hush-hush topic, 300 Russian journalists, lawyers and human rights defenders joined an open room at the Clubhouse to discuss the spy case against one. One of Russia’s top military reporters is Ivan Safronov, who has been jailed for more than six months.
In July, the Federal Security Service arrested Safronov and placed him in Lefortovo, one of Moscow’s best-known prisons, where he faces up to 20 years in prison. The agency accused Safronov of working for the Czech secret service and transmitting classified information about the Russian army. Investigators claim that the US was the final recipient of the secret information provided by Safronov in 2017.
“It’s been almost seven months since Ivan was put behind bars; his accusers probably hoped that there would be no public attention to his case until now “, says Safronov’s friend Ilya Barabanov, who was one of the five keynote speakers at the Clubhouse discussion.
Some users of the Russian Clubhouse compare the platform to 1980s television shows – or TV Bridges, as they were known to the USSR – distributed between Russian and American audiences. Soviet and American journalists organized bridges to connect Moscow, Leningrad, San Francisco, Boston and other cities for discussions about history and trends in culture, journalism or lifestyles.
As bridges did more than 40 years ago, Clubhouse now offers a platform for some unexpected speakers, including Putin’s alleged daughter, who used the app to discuss her thoughts on working in New York, Paris or Milan, appealing to the cities of “fashion boiling points”. (The Kremlin has denied being a relative.)
Rozova opened to Andrei Zakharov, the author of “Iron Masks”, an investigation report in the Proekt media that tells the life of his mother, the fabulous rich Svetlana Krivonogikh. According to Proekt, Krivonogikh has a net worth of $ 101 million. She has been Putin’s “close acquaintance” since the 1990s, and her daughter, Luiza, “bears a striking resemblance” to the Kremlin leader, according to the report. Rozova did not comment on this aspect of Zakharov’s story, but acknowledged that she enjoyed the popularity she brought to her social media accounts.
Thanks to Clubhouse, the Russians now know that Rozova is not watching TV, receives her news from the Telegram application, believes in pandemic conspiracy theories and approves of the Kremlin’s assassination of political dissidents. Before Zakharov joined the discussion, a Clubhouse user asked Rozova what she thought of Putin’s comment about Alexei Navalny’s poisoning, saying Russian special services wanted to kill Navalny, “it would be over. -a”.
Rozova replied without hesitation: “The Golden Billionaire society is behind the whole coronavirus trick. It looks like I’m killing people, “said the teenager. “If ordinary people can do it, why can’t the government do it for reasonable purposes?”
However, there is no safe place against the pervasive Russian corruption. The government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta warns citizens about purchasing invitations to Clubhouse talks, urging them “not to give in to enthusiasm” and “not to pay for invitations from strangers”.
Russian bureaucrats of all levels, from regional officials to the Kremlin administration, also join the Clubhouse talks. This includes former Deputy Prime Minister and current president of the International Chess Federation, Arkady Dvorkovich, who used the app on Monday to answer questions about Russia’s plans to host the chess Olympics, announcing that it hopes to “host the chess olympics in Moscow next year future. . ”
Political opponents of the Kremlin are also exploring the possibilities that come with this new social environment. Valery Kostenok, a 21-year-old politician and member of the Yabloko party, downloaded Clubhouse on his phone on Wednesday. “I was skeptical at first because it was rumored that someone was recording all the conversations and missing them. But I realized that I have no secrets from anyone and I decided to download the application “, he declared for The Daily Beast. “The pandemic, police arrests and persecution have made many of our favorite platforms and spaces unavailable. The Russians are big fans of public lectures, debates and discussions, so our young people are now storming the Clubhouse rooms ”.