Russia's Old Time Tradition

Hook/Intro

A prominent Russian politician is gunned down at night while walking on one of the most secured streets in Russia. Boris Nemtsov was a rising star in Russian politics in the 1990’s at a time when Russia was rebranding itself as a democratic country. It was Russia’s first democratically elected president, Boris Yeltsin who appointed Nemtsov governor of Nizhny Novgorod in 1991 (Bushev). Then at the age of 36, he became the deputy prime minister of Russia (Bushev). Many thought that it was not a question of if Nemtsov would replace Yeltsin as President of Russia, but a question of when. However, the presidency did not go to Nemtsov. Instead it went to a former KGB spy, Valdimir Putin.

Nemtsov and his party, the Union of Right forces, were now the opposition. Nemtsov became a big critic of Putin and the Russian government, better known as the Kremlin. Two things that Putin hates are democracy and criticism from his own people. Putin has a way of dealing with people who criticize him without getting his hands dirty. Nemtsov’s supporters found that out when on February 27, 2015, he was gunned down while walking on the street where the Kremlin is located. Recently the BBC in collaboration with Bellingcat and The Insider discovered that Valery Sukharev, an agent with ties to an FBS hit squad was tailing Nemtsov prior to his murder (BBC Eye Invetigations). Sukharev is also suspected to have tailed two other critics of Putin, Vladimir Kara-Murza and Alexi Navalny prior to their unsuccessful poisonings. Boris Nemtsov became another name on the list of political opposition leaders permanently censored during Putin’s reign as President of Russia.

Roadmap of the paper

In this paper, I inform the reader about censorship in Russia, of two types of censorship the Russian government uses, and the effect censorship has on citizens of Russia in times of war when combined with propaganda. First, I inform the reader about the history of censorship in Russia. Second, I inform the reader of political censorship in Russia through what has happened to Alexei Navalny. Third, I inform the reader of internet censorship in Russian through what has happened to Western technology companies. Fourth, I inform the reader about the effect the tandem of censorship and propaganda during the war in Ukraine has had on citizens of Russia. Lastly, I give my concluding thoughts. Ultimately, I explore the ways Putin and the Russian Government have used censorship to curtail dissent in Russia and deprive Russian citizens from knowing what is truly going on around them.

Censorship/History of Censorship in Russia

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) defines censorship as “the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are "offensive,”” (“What Is Censorship?”). Censorship allows for governments who engage in it to prevent there from being the thing that John Stuart Mills advocated for, a marketplace of ideas (Warburton 25) by stifling freedom of speech and expression. One of the governments who uses censorship to stifle speech, expression, and information they do not like and as a result prevents there from being a marketplace of ideas in their country, is the Russian government.

Censorship in Russia is an age-old tradition. The first unofficial Censorship institution in Russia was the church. The church put itself in charge of censoring items in Russia. At the beginning most of the items the church censored were books they were not to kin about. As time went on, the church expanded its censorship to include the censorship of paintings and even the permanent censorship of writers by way of execution. Writers Sylvester Medvedev, Quirinus Kuhlmann, and Conrad Norderman were all executed in the late seventeenth century and their writings were banned (“Censorship in the Russian Empire”).

After centuries of censorship, Russian citizens, authors, journalists, and other intellectuals experienced what it was like to live and work in a country without censorship when censorship reforms were put in place during 1855 through 1865. Then in 1866 censorship laws were reintroduced. However, the ten-year span of no censorship during 1855 through 1865 would not be the last time there was no censorship in Russia as censorship was repealed again in 1905 and fully abolished in 1917 (Newth par.1). Although, no censorship in Russia was once again short lived as according to Mette Newth “a new, long and extensive era of strict censorship” (par.1), began in 1918. This period of censorship lasted until the late 1980s.

During this period of censorship Glavlit, “the central censorship office” was created. According to Mette Newth, “the Glavlit had absolute authority to subject the performing arts and all publications to preventive censorship, and suppress political dissidence by shutting down ''hostile `` newspapers'' (par.2). As a show of just how many items the Glavlit censored, after the shutdown of the Department of Special Storage which the Glavlit authorized to withdraw literature from open collections and from bookstores, Newth writes that approximately “27,000 Russian books, 250,000 foreign books, 572,000 issues of foreign magazines, 8,500 annual sets of foreign newspapers and 8,000 publications” (par.8) were found to be in their possession.

In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and it seemed that censorship would go with it. There was good reason to believe that there would no longer be censorship in Russia and that this time its abolishment would be permanent as Russia’s first democratic elected president Boris Yeltsin, “eliminated government censorship of the press (Duke Today Staff). During his eight-year reign as President of Russia, the press was free to report the truth about events such as what was happening in the war in Chechnya. Sadly, this period of there being no censorship in Russia was short lived once Vladimir Putin became the President of Russia. Putin in public was supportive of democracy, but in private and in Russia he made it clear that his mission was to return to the past (Rosenberg). One element that he brought back from the past was censorship. By reimplementing censorship, Putin is violating the Russian constitution, as it states in Article 29 of Chapter 2 “Rights and Freedoms of Man and Citizen”, that “everyone shall be guaranteed the freedom of ideas and speech, the freedom of mass communication shall be guaranteed and censorship shall be banned” (“Chapter 2”).

Putin's first target for censorship was the news media as most Russians watched television to get their news. In the early years of his reign as President of Russia, television stations either went off the air or were in the control of friends of his (Duke Today Staff). As time has gone on, Putin has set his sights on censoring opposing politicians and the internet.

Political Censorship

Alexei Navalny is a Russian corporate lawyer and one of the many political thorns in Vladimir Putin’s side. He got into Russian politics in the late 1990s when he began working with Yabloko, a liberal democratic party. Navalny began to make a name for himself in Russian politics. His big breakthrough came in 2005, when alongside former prime minister Yegor Gaidar’s daughter, Maria, founded the youth political movement called Da! (Yes) (Taub par.7). Two years later in 2007, he began his anti-corruption campaign to expose corruption in Russia.

To do this, Navalny invested in major Russian companies such as state-run energy giants Gazprom and Rosneft through the purchasing of shares of these companies (Taub par.8). He then would use his shareholder status and legal skills to obtain the finances of these companies to try to find corruption within them. Once he found any sign of corruption in the documents he obtained, he would publish his findings on his LiveJournalBlog (Taub par.8). His blog began picking up steam and his popularity grew within Russia.

In 2011, he called for demonstrations to protest election fraud. Through these protests organized by Navalny and others who opposed the Russian government, grew the “white ribbon” movement that called for an end to Putin’s regime in the Kremlin (Russian government) (Taub par.13). Exposing anti-corruption in Russia is a threat to Putin and his oligarch friends, but calling for Putin’s reign to end is the ultimate threat to Putin. Putin had to do something to try and silence Alexei Navalny and his supporters.

That something came in the form of putting Navalny under house arrest on the bogus charges of fraud and embezzlement in 2013 (Taub par.14). The Russian government also arrested Navalny’s brother, Oleg on the same charges. Navalny received a suspended sentence of five years after protests were held on his behalf, but Oleg received a three and half-year custodial sentence (Taub par.19-20). The thinking by the Russian government and Putin was that anti-Putin regime protest would diminish if Navalny was not thrown into jail and Navalny himself would self-censor to protect his brother. Well, Navalny did not grant Putin’s wish. Navalny kept giving Putin and the Russian government a lot of headaches. Tylenol was not going to cure the headaches Navalny was giving Putin and the Russian government, so Putin decided he had to permanently silence Navalny using poison.

After unsuccessful attempts to silence Navalny, his supporters, and Navalny’s continuation of exposing anti-corruption in Russia, Putin had had enough. On August 20, 2020, Navalny felt ill while on a plane from the Siberian city of Tomsk to Moscow (Noble par.2). He immediately knew he had been poisoned by people who had been sent by Putin. Navalny survived the poisoning. His assumptions were found to be true when he deceived a Russian FSB agent into telling him all about the plan to poison him. The FSB agent, Konstantin Kudryavtsev revealed to Navalny who was posing as a Russian agent that they had placed the lethal Soviet era nerve agent, Novichok in Navalny’s underwear (Lister, et al.). After recovering from Putin’s unsuccessful poisoning of him, Navalny returned to Russia where he was arrested by the Russian police who were waiting for him as he got off the plane. Navalny was sentenced to two years and eight months behind bars for violating his probation terms stemming from his 2014 money laundering case (“Russian Opposition”). During his sentencing hearing Navalny summarized why Putin was going after him when said "this is how it works — they imprison one man, as a means to intimidate millions of people" (“Russian Opposition”). Putin goes for the big fish in this case Alexei Navalny to intimidate the little fish, Navalny supporters into self-censoring.

Internet Censorship

Russia’s crackdown on freedom of speech and expression, and its censorship of the internet began in 2012 with the creation of the internet blacklist registry. According to Human Rights watch, “in 2012 the Russia’s parliament (State Duma) passed Federal Law № 139-FZ ‘On Introducing Amendments to the Law on Protection of Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development’” (“Online”). Human Rights Watch states that, “the law introduced a uniform registry of websites or URLs subject to blocking, or internet blacklist, to be managed by the federal service for supervision of communications, information technology, and mass media, Roskomnadzor” (“Online”).

Roskomnadzor was created in 2008 by former Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev. According to Andrei Lipov, head of the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, Roskomnadzor oversees “the media, including the electronic media, and mass communications, information technology and telecommunications; overseeing compliance with the law protecting the confidentiality of personal data being processed; and organizing the work of the radio-frequency service” (Lipov). It is Russia’s version of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), except the Roskomnadzor does not serve the public’s interest. Instead it serves as the enforcer of internet censorship laws created by the Russian government to tighten its grip on the information circulating online.

The Roskomnadzor makes sure internet companies are compliant with internet censorship laws such as the “Yarovaya” Amendments. The Yarovaya Amendments were created by Irina Yarovaya, a member of the State Duma, the parliament’s lower house, from the ruling United Russia party, in 2016 and are named after her (Russian: Growing”). According to Human Rights Watch, “the Yarovaya Amendments include a number of provisions that undermine the right to privacy and freedom of expression online” (“Russia: Growing”). Some of the provisions in the Yarovaya Amendments increase the intrusiveness of the alarming 2015 demands that tech companies store the data of Russian citizens on Russian soil. In 2018, as a sign that the Russian government is tightening its grip around freedom of expression online, “another batch of Yarovaya amendments came into effect, requiring companies to retain for six months the content of all communications, such as text messages, voice, data, and images, store this data on Russian servers” (“Russian: Growing”). The most troubling part of these new amendments is that internet and telecommunications companies must make all the communications Russian authorities are asking for, available to them on demand without judicial oversight.

If internet and telecommunications companies do not comply with any of Russia’s censorship laws that target freedom of speech and expression online, they risk being fined or worse permanently blocked in Russia as was the case for U.S. online service provider LinkedIn. In 2016, Roskomnadzor blocked access to LinkedIn after a Russian court found the U.S. online service company in violation of the law that demands internet and telecommunications companies store the data of Russian citizens in Russian territory (Walker). LinkedIn was the first foreign company to be found in violation of this law, but it was not the last. In 2018, Roskomnadzor ordered Twitter and Facebook to localize Russian user’ data which LinkedIn refused to do two years prior and got permanently blocked for. After Twitter and Facebook sent letters to Roskomnadzor in which they questioned these regulations, the Roskomnadzor fined both companies three thousand rubles, the equivalent of fifty US dollars each for “failing to share user data with local law enforcement” (“Russian Court”). If that was not enough punishment for Twitter and Facebook trying to protect their users in Russia, a Moscow district court fined both four million rubles, the equivalent of sixty-two thousand eight hundred and forty US dollars, each for again refusing to store Russian users’ data on servers located inside Russia (“Russian Court”). The continuation of the Russian government fining Western media companies for not complying with their request to provide them with their Russian users’ data and to censor items they do not like has made these companies comply with some of the request to try to elevate the punishment.

Twitter complied with Roskomnadzor’s orders to delete tweets that the Russian government deemed to contain “illegal content”. Roskomnadzor slowed down Twitter in early 2021 for not complying with the request at first. But, Roskomnadzor told the BBC that they were partially reversing their action to slow down Twitter because its claims that the company had removed ninety-one percent of the five thousand nine hundred tweets it had previously had ordered Twitter to delete (Zakharov and Churmanova). The tweets are only deleted in Russia and are accompanied by a statement that reads “this tweet has been withheld in Russia in response to a legal demand” (Zakharov and Churmanova).

Another Western technology company that has increasingly complied with the Russian government's request that it remove content is Google. Google is the biggest Western company in Russia as YouTube is the most popular social media app with seventy-eight and half million Russians using it. YouTubes popularity in Russia has made Google a target in the Russian Government's mission to censor the internet in Russia. In fact, Russia from 2011 to 2020 put in over one hundred and twenty-three thousand content removal requests to Google, by far the most of any country in the world (Zakharov and Churmanova). At first like other Western companies, Google rejected most of the Russian government's request to delete content, but has increasingly complied. In the first half of 2019, Google rejected fifty percent of the Russian government’s requests, but in the first half of 2021 they only rejected eight percent of those requests (Zakharov and Churmanova).

An effect of there being no such thing as a marketplace of ideas in Russia because of the Russian government’s ongoing censorship and compliance of Western technology companies to stifle speech, expression, and information the Russian government finds “offensive”, is that the Russian government’s propaganda is flourishing in Russia. Look no further than to war, specifically the war in Ukraine. Putin and the Russian government is using censorship to create a clear path for Russian propaganda to reach the masses and keep Russian citizens in the dark about what is truly transpiring in Ukraine. Propaganda such as the war is a “special military operation”^[1], “Ukrainian officials committing genocide against Russian-speaking citizens of Donbas”^[2], and the need to “demilitarize and denazify”^[3] Ukraine because according to Putin the Ukrainian government is infiltrated with Nazis. To make sure its propaganda is effective in Russia, the Russian government has implemented censorship methods to go along with it. Censorship methods such as blocking Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram in Russia^[4], Roskomnadzor telling Russian state media to only use government sources when reporting about the war in Ukraine^[5], and making factually reporting what is happening in Ukraine a crime punishable by 15 years in prison^[6].

Unfortunately, as Mykhailo, a Kyiv restaurateur, and Anastasiya, a BBC Ukrainian correspondent, found out, Russian propaganda with the help of censorship has infiltrated the minds of Russian citizens like Mykhailo’s father and Anastasiya’s mother. Mykhailo called his father who is in Russia to tell him about what was happening in Ukraine and his father replied that “there was no war and - in fact - Russians were saving Ukraine from Nazis” (Korenyuk and Goodman). While, Anastasiya phoned her mother who is in Russia to let her know that she was scared and that there were civilian casualties to which her mother replied, “don’t worry, they [Russia] will never bomb Kyiv” and regarding civilian casualties, that, “that's what we had too when Ukraine attacked Donbas” (Korenyuk and Goodman). Therefore, Russians such as Mykhailo’s father and Anastasiya’s mother are oblivious to what is truly happening in Ukraine because of the propaganda and censorship in Russia.

Russians in Russia are unaware that the “special military operation” is an invasion of Ukraine that has resulted in a war being fought on Ukraine soil. They are unaware that 6,029,705^[7] Ukraine’s have fled Ukraine since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Most importantly, they are unaware that as of April 26, 2022 about 15,000 Russian troops have been killed, that about 2,500 to 3,000 Ukraine soldiers have been killed, and that about 2,729 Ukrainian civilians have been killed (Saul), with these numbers climbing as Putin’s unprovoked war continues. The lies and propaganda that Putin and the Russian government fed citizens of Russia have therefore violated John Stuart Mill's idea, the harm principle (Warburton 23) as these lies and propaganda have resulted in physical violence against Ukraine citizens at the hands of the Russian army.

Conclusion

Overall, censorship is steeped into the foundation of Russia. Putin is clearly following his predecessors. He has used censorship the same way his predecessors used it, but has taken it up a notch by using it to censor something his predecessors never had to deal with, the internet. With Putin in charge, Russia has slowly moved away from being a marketplace of ideas resulting in citizens of Russia not truly knowing what is going on around them. Citizens of Russia have become victims of Russia’s censorship without even knowing it.