Facing a panel of human rights activists last December, Vladimir Putin awkwardly defended Russia’s notorious legal ban on homosexual “propaganda.” While admitting that human rights abuses had occurred, he argued that the law was part of Russia’s “strategic choice” to protect traditional relationships, and that a “balanced approach,” where people neither “bother” nor “exclude” each other, is best for Russia. As “balanced” as Putin purports the Kremlin’s policy to be, it has set off a wave of anti-LGBT sentiment in Russia. Discrimination and hate towards the LGBT community have skyrocketed following the adoption of the 2013 law, which human rights activists have called out for having intentionally “broad and vague wording” and for “violating right to freedom of expression.” A single web search will show that Russia’s LGBT community has a wide and thriving presence online, but what it won't reveal is that the Internet is quickly becoming a battleground in the Kremlin and Russian conservative lobby’s assault on the LGBT community. Origins and Successes The legalization of homosexuality in 1993 and the advent of the Internet contributed to an explosion of gay dating and social networks in Russia. Gay online websites provided an opportunity for LGBT individuals to be part of a community while being relatively free from pressure to publicly identify themselves and from the threat of homophobic violence. Today, a large variety of LGBT dating sites exists, with both Russian and foreign websites widely used by the community members. While enclaves within St. Petersburg and Moscow provide safe public spaces, in smaller and/or more socially conservative cities the Internet may be the only connection people have to the broader LGBT community in Russia. Though some Russians have reported that these dating sites are not worth the time and effort, the sites continue to be popular in Russia, with some sites like qguys.ru hosting nearly 300,000 active profiles. Dating apps like Grindr are also popular, although they often come with privacy issues: in 2014, after a flaw in the Grindr location feature was exposed, a blogger reported locating many Grindr users within Russia, including several active Grindr profiles within the Kremlin itself. Grindr in the Kremlin, where several active profiles were spotted by a concerned activist. Image from http://americablog.com/. Even more encouraging has been the grassroots effort to build online support networks for LGBT youth. The most famous of these is Дети-404 (Children 404), with 404 being the error code for an invalid or non-existing URL—a play on the state's attitude towards ‘invisible’ LGBT teenagers. The group posts harrowing and inspirational accounts from gay teens struggling to find their identity in unaccepting environments. Even outside of official groups, certain teens have found support in unrelated cultural interests. The alternative music scene in Russia has been known to be tolerant towards LGBT youths, and other teenagers have found support through a shared interest in anime. Challenges and Dangers For all that the RuNet has given rise to communities of support, it has also become a tool for increasingly violent and invasive anti-LGBT crimes. As profiled by the BBC, Human Rights Watch, and Children-404 itself, vigilante groups have begun to use Internet dating sites to lure LGBT individuals, almost always gay men, into dangerous circumstances under the pretense of going on a date. Once isolated, the groups verbally and physically abuse their victims (and in extreme cases murder them), and post videos of these acts to social media sites and anti-LGBT websites. Though some of these groups have been removed or banned, others have as many as 170,000 members, and their videos receive tens of thousands of views. While violence and harassment of homosexuals in Russia is not exactly new, this new brand of vigilante groups is a direct outgrowth of Russia’s recent anti-homosexual propaganda ban. The law, which purports to ban “the propaganda of non-traditional relationships among minors,” conflates homosexuality and pedophilia to such a degree that most Russian hate groups directly equate the two. The largest of these groups is Occupy Pedophilia, whose members use the words pedophilia and homosexuality interchangeably, and brag of protecting Russia’s youth from pedophiles through their homophobic assaults. In addition, the law’s vague distinction between private and public expression of sexuality has permitted these vigilante groups to exploit the private online lives of Russia’s LGBT community. Russian law enforcement has only compounded the problem by turning a blind eye to the reports of beatings and abuse.