162 Final Project

The Russian government has always controlled what information they made available to the public, but with the invasion of Ukraine, Russia cracked down on its censorship laws. On Friday, March 3, 2022, President Vladmir Putin signed into law a new bill prohibiting fake news about the Russian army. Anyone who publishes “knowingly false information” can face jail terms of up to 15 years in prison. All media coverage or social media posts relating to the war that diverge from the state agenda are considered criminal and Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google News have been banned. Journalists are not allowed to use the words “war” or “invasion” when writing about the war as the Russian government sees this as undermining the national interest. With this new legislation, Putin has made it clear that he is using censorship as a tool to protect the Russian government’s interests. He does not want true, reliable information of the Russian operation spreading to the people of Russia, as well as the outside world.

From 1917 to 1991, Russia was a communist enterprise. During this time, Russia had strict laws preventing people from speaking out against the government and protesting the communist party. Anybody who would speak out would be made to seem crazy and like they hated Russian culture. This created a lack of demand for freedom of speech and the press throughout Russia. The people within Russia have been fed censored information since the day they were born, so they did not know any different and believe what the government is telling them. People and journalists from Russia tried to speak out, but the government silenced them by making them seem crazy to the public. With the rise of technology, people were able to leave Russia and the people within Russia became more aware of the ongoing corruption.

Today, Russia is in theory, a federal, democratic state, but in practice it can be seen that President Vladmir Putin holds all the power and could be considered a dictator. Vladmir Putin has been in power since 1999 and been accused of blatant election fraud. On December 10, 2011 and again on December 24, 2011, Russians fled the streets of Moscow to protest the fraudulent elections, with goals of political freedom, fair elections, and release of political prisoners. This was the largest protest that Moscow had seen since the 1990s and can be seen as the people openly trying to fight for their political rights back. Following the 2011-2013 Russian protests against the fraudulent elections, the first countrywide judicial censorship measures were taken. Russia introduced the Internet blacklist law in November of 2012, blacklisting child pornography and anything advocating suicide and illegal drugs. The Internet blacklist law, originally can be seen as legislation that aimed to protect the welfare of young children, but in 2013 they amended the blacklist law to include content “suspected in extremism”, “calling for illegal meetings”, “inciting hatred”, and “violating established order”. This amendment to the law can be seen as more abstract so as to allow the government to stretch the law to more content that they deem unacceptable. The amendment does not specify certain instances of “hatred” or “extremism” so that it is open to interpretation and can be interpreted from the lens of the Russian government. In 2017, a bill was passed that enforced the internet censorship by banning all software and websites related to circumventing internet filtering in Russia. This includes any VPN software, anonymizers, or instructions on how to circumvent government website blocking. In essence, the government banned the only way for Russian citizens to receive uncensored, unbiased news. After banning circumventing, they went on in April, 2018 to ban and block Telegram, one of the most popular social media apps in Russia and a place where the Russian people were able to communicate. Once again, this can be seen as the government trying to silence the people and take away any power that the people have. The government went on to pass legislation in March 2019, banning the publication of “unreliable socially significant information” and anything that shows “clear disrespect” for the Russian federation.

Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, federal laws were intensified to prohibit the dissemination of “knowingly false” information regarding the Russian military. These new laws primarily applied to foreign media outlets, with Facebook and Twitter also being blocked. The Russian government holds all the power over their people and aims to control all the information that their citizens are provided, to eliminate any negative feelings towards the government. What the government can’t control completely, is what the rest of the world is saying about Russia. What outside sources publish when it comes to Russia compared to what censored Russian journalists publish is quite different. When doing my research throughout the semester, you could see a stark difference between someone reporting from within Russia versus someone from outside of Russia and this is due to the legislation on reporting in Russia. Reporters from within Russia, have to almost sugar-coat their writing and leave out any inclusion of talk of a war or invasion. This makes it very hard for these journalists to report on anything that actually has any truth to it. The reporting from outside of Russia, paints a very different picture, with extreme censorship and dictator-like actions from their President.

Currently in Russia, the government has been cracking down on the content that they allow to be published by journalists and on the Internet. New legislation can lead up to a 15-year sentence in jail for spreading false information or any information opposing the war. The new legislation also prohibits the use of the words “war” and “invasion”. On March 11, 2022, Mark Bernstein, one of Russian Wikipedia’s top 50 editors, was arrested and detained in Minsk for “distributing fake anti-Russian information”. Bernstein had been editing the Wikipedia page related to the invasion of Ukraine. This goes to show that the Russian government is monitoring the Internet and will go to any means to protect their own interests.

In April of 2022, a 12-year-old girl, Masha Moskaleva, drew an anti-war pro-Ukrainian picture in her art class at school. Her art teacher, Nina Vorobieva, did not approve and went to the principal who called the police. Masha was able to escape and get home to her father. The next day, her father went to school with her and the police were once again called. They lectured him on how he was teaching his daughter the wrong thing and he was later charged with “discrediting” the Russian army. The next day at school, Masha was detained by the FSB and her father Alexei was again interrogated and lectured over three and a half hours for failing to raise his child and told they would take Masha away and put him in jail. Since March 2, Alexei has been detained, while Masha was sent to live in a shelter for minors. On March 3, a lawsuit was filed to take restrict the parental rights of Alexei Moskalev. From this case, we can see that the Russian government does not care what they have to do to protect their own interests, including splitting up a child from her only parental figure. They are so afraid to have any public dissemination because they fear that eventually with enough public outcry, the people will push for change. From a young age, it is important to the government that their values are instilled or else they risk this public outcry.

In another case, U.S. journalist, Evan Gershkovich, was detained in Yekaterinburg on suspicion of “espionage in the interests of the American government”. Moscow courts have determined that he will be detained for 2 months. Not only does the Russian government want to stop the spread of information within Russia, but they also want to stop information about what is actually happening in Russia from getting to the outside world. This is why they have taken action not only against Russian citizens and journalists, but now against journalists from other countries as well. If information of the invasion is able to spread outside of Russia, there is a chance that it can spread within Russia, so the government must neutralize any and all new that they consider against their interests. The spread of information to outside countries also brings in a new risk for the government of other government forces that oppose what is going on in Russia, which is why the government will go to any means to censor information and protect their interests. From this we can see that the Russian social/political/legal environment is a hostile and negative place to be currently. The government is censoring more information than ever and cracking down on journalists and commonfolk trying to spread information about the war. At this point, it is clear that the Russian government is using censorship as a political tool against the people of Russia.

Overall, since the invasion of Ukraine, Putin has put into place legislation after legislation to protect the interests of the Russian government and suppress media outlets from publishing news on the invasion. The new legislation has moved from protecting the interest of the common good, to using censorship as a political tool against the Russian people. While there are people who do not agree with the invasion and such, there is no place for these people to speak out within their country without risking their physical safety and what is even worse is that they have no where physically to escape. For many Russians who did not want to comply with the invasion, they were left out in the cold with no where to go. While staying in Russia was not an option, the rest of the world didn’t exactly have open arms for all the people fleeing. This leaves many people in Russia with no other option, but to comply with the laws in order to stay safe.

References

Afp. (2023, April 23). Putin signs law introducing jail terms for ‘fake news’ on Army. The Moscow Times. Retrieved April 23, 2023, from https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/03/04/putin-signs-law-introducing-jail-terms-for-fake-news-on-army-a76768

Chaitin, D. (2022, March 12). Russian Wikipedia editor reportedly arrested in Belarus. Washington Examiner. Retrieved April 23, 2023, from https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/russian-wikipedia-editor-reportedly-arrested-in-belarus

Guyer, J. (2023, March 30). The first US journalist was just arrested in Russia since the Cold War. Vox. Retrieved April 23, 2023, from https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/3/30/23663270/wall-street-journal-american-reporter-evan-gershkovich-arrested-russia-first-since-cold-war

People fleeing from Russia: ‘we were deprived of “home” too’. Global Voices. (2023, March 1). Retrieved April 23, 2023, from https://globalvoices.org/2023/03/01/people-fleeing-from-russia-we-were-deprived-of-home-too/

The politics of censorship in Russia. Censorship and Government Regulation of Music RSS. (n.d.). Retrieved April 23, 2023, from https://wordpress.clarku.edu/musc210-cgr/pussy-riot-and-the-censorship-of-political-activism-in-russia/the-politics-of-censorship-in-russia/

A Russian girl drew anti-war picture. now she is in a children’s shelter and her dad is under arrest. Global Voices. (2023, March 21). Retrieved April 23, 2023, from https://globalvoices.org/2023/03/21/a-russian-girl-drew-anti-war-picture-now-she-is-in-a-childrens-shelter-and-her-dad-is-under-arrest/

Troianovski, A., & Safronova, V. (2022, March 4). Russia takes censorship to new extremes, stifling war coverage. The New York Times. Retrieved April 23, 2023, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/04/world/europe/russia-censorship-media-crackdown.html