Social networks of death : conspiracy panics and professional journalistic ethics in the post-Soviet Russia

In May 2016, a leading Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta published a long investigative piece entitled “The Groups of Death” about public groups in the Russian social network VKontakte which allegedly target teenagers and encourage them to commit suicide. The author claimed that Russian youngsters were being killed by an unknown force that remotely “pulls the strings” on the Internet. The article triggered a massive public debate about the danger of the Internet for young Russians and called for the founders of these groups imprisoned and legislation amended to prosecute anyone who tries to encourage, aid and abet suicide. The debate quickly escalated into the sphere of professional journalistic ethics: the author of “the groups of deaths” pieces was accused of violating the ethical norms of journalistic investigation and thus spreading fear of technological progress among ordinary Russians. On the one hand, the fact of publication in a respected investigative newspaper demonstrates that even critically thinking professionals are vulnerable to conspiratorial thinking. This not only shapes the alarmist national discourse around the Internet but it indirectly helps the government to further curtail freedom of speech. On the other hand, the escalation of the debate to the sphere of ethics uncovers the lack of professional principles that allows Russian journalists to spread conspiracy theories without any professional or reputational reprimand.