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Authorities do not tolerate genuine political opposition and have restricted the online and offline activism of would-be presidential candidate Aleksey Navalny.
Laws set to take effect before the election include a ban on virtual private networks (VPNs) that grant access to blocked sites and a rule requiring social media users to register with their phone numbers.
Following a heavy-handed police response to anticorruption protests in 2017, a tougher crackdown online may precede the 2018 election. In past campaigns, cyberattacks targeted election-monitoring websites, and authorities intimidated political activists who posted observations online.