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In a 2019 interview John Anderson interviewed Konstantin Kisin (excerpt, original video). The discussion is transcribed by the OP of Were over 3000 persons arrested in Britain for social media posts in 2018?. I is the interviewer and K is for Konstantin.

K: In Russia last year 400 people were arrested for things that they posted on social media. Obviously this country is very different. How many do you think were arrested in Britain for what they said in social media?

I: ...

K: Take a guess.

I: I've no idea.

K: 3300 I: Really? Arrested for things that they said on social media? ...

The 3300 figure is most likely taken from a 2017 piece in The Times (thanks to this answer).

More than 3,300 people were detained and questioned last year over so-called trolling on social media and other online forums, a rise of nearly 50 per cent in two years, according to figures obtained by The Times.

But the statement is phrased such that the numbers certainly need not be restricted to the offences cited by the times.

How many people were arrested in Russia in 2018 for social media posts, and what definition of "for" is this figure based on?

Related question: Were over 3000 persons arrested in Britain for social media posts in 2018?

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    With current war going on, it might be tricky to get reliable information regarding -well- virtually anything from Russia at the moment.
    – pinegulf
    Commented Dec 16, 2022 at 13:17

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If "last year" also means 2017 for this data, it looks to be true (but it's unclear if these were arrests or just cases), according to Newsweek:

The police raid on Markin's home came amid Russia's escalating crackdown on social media activity. Agora, a Russian human rights group, says law enforcement has opened 411 criminal cases against internet users in Russia in 2017, compared with 298 cases in 2016.

The paper (Con)trolling the Web: Social Media User Arrests, State-Supported Vigilantism and Citizen Counter- Forces in Russia gives some details into the laws, and the Human Rights Center Memorial (in Russian) gives some examples of arrests.

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    It might be worth pointing out that 'arrested', 'detained' and 'had criminal cases opened against' mean very different things, but often are used almost interchangeably in media.
    – Sergey Guminov
    Commented Dec 16, 2022 at 15:55
  • "law enforcement has opened 411 criminal cases against internet users in Russia in 2017" This is a rather weak statement, when you think about it. Is there a more specific one?
    – user76284
    Commented Dec 16, 2022 at 19:42
  • @user76284 More specific how? The last link has info like "Alexander Byvshev… is being persecuted for publishing pro-Ukrainian poems on the Internet" (translated by Google).
    – Laurel
    Commented Dec 16, 2022 at 20:55
  • Uhm, yeah, but the question is about the total . I never doubted that there were 400 people, I doubted that the number isn't much higher. You didn't explain at all how you arrive at a 400 total and why this is the right number and shouldn't include a bunch of other arrests that might have been made based on information gathered from social media posts.
    – Nobody
    Commented Dec 20, 2022 at 22:04

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