Russian State Service Uses Secret Sociological Research and Automated Social Media Monitoring to Assess Public Sentiment

The Federal Protective Service of the Russian Federation uses closed tools to assess public sentiment through secret opinion polls and control of the digital space.

According to Vyorstka, a special classified sociological unit operates within the structure of the Federal Protective Service of the Russian Federation to carry out these tasks. This unit conducts secret public opinion surveys directly for the president and the country’s top officials.

The results of these covert studies are regularly used to supplement official public statistics. The Russian leadership relies on this classified data when making key political decisions.

The scale of the agency’s internal sociological research significantly exceeds that of civilian counterparts. Each year, the security service conducts approximately 500 sociological studies across the country.

The total sample of these confidential surveys includes more than 400,000 respondents. This figure is ten times higher than the scope of civilian polling services, which are typically limited to sample sizes of 2,000 to 5,000 people.

In addition to public opinion polling, the Federal Protective Service continuously monitors social media. In 2014, its specialists introduced an automated system for tracking activity on online platforms.

Before this system was developed, officers manually gathered information from the internet. Today, the agency actively uses OSINT (open-source intelligence) methods to monitor shifts in public sentiment.

Analysts monitor of the Federal Protective Service of the Russian Federation exclusively open sources of information. Their continuous analysis covers public channels, publicly accessible chats, as well as user comments under posts.

The main purpose of this network monitoring is to assess the overall political and informational mood of society. The results help the system respond promptly to potential threats.

Meanwhile, matters of state security and direct enforcement are handled by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, while the Federal Protective Service of the Russian Federation focuses strictly on assessing public sentiment.

This work is based on the Presidential Decree No. 1013 of August 7, 2004, which defines the responsibilities of the agency’s special communications system.

Under this decree, the Federal Protective Service of the Russian Federation supplies government bodies with information gathered through ongoing monitoring of the country’s socio-economic and socio-political developments.