russia and Censorship: a History of Unfreedom

The state duma of the rf has passed a package of laws aimed at further strengthening state censorship and expanding the tools for controlling the information space. In particular, one of the documents provides for the introduction of fines for attempts to search the Internet for “knowingly extremist materials”, including using VPNs. Besides, article 14.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses has been amended to provide for liability for spreading VPN service advertisements. A separate law allows for the blocking of films in cinemas if their content, in the opinion of the authorities, “discredits traditional russian values”.

The Constitution of the rf guarantees freedom of speech, but in reality the kremlin has never tolerated dissent. Silencing citizens is a tradition that dates back to imperial times.

As early as 1804, Emperor Alexander I introduced the first “censorship charter”. Works that were “hostile to orthodoxy and autocracy” were banned. With the course of time, censorship was only strengthening: Nicholas I’s “cast-iron statute”, restrictions on the press under Alexander III, and harsh repressions against publishers in the late 19th century.

After the 1917 revolution, the bolsheviks immediately closed hundreds of newspapers. In the 1920s, “Glavlit” – a structure that exercised total control over the press until the last days of the USSR – was established.

Today’s russia reproduces the same practices. Since the early 2000s, censorship has been reintroduced in russia, especially after the temporary occupation of Crimea. Laws on “fake news”, website blocking, and lists of “undesirable” cultural figures – all testify to a systemic state policy of eradicating dissent. Peskov is already openly talking about “military censorship”, while former minister of culture Shvydkoy is calling for the return of the soviet censorship institution because “it was more professional than the current bans”.

In russia, censorship is a systemic phenomenon, and therefore restrictions will only get worse.