Russian government censors and bans media content, threatening citizens’ freedom of expression. // Photo courtesy of Silar.
“Russia’s attacking Ukraine and simultaneously attacking media freedoms,” said Susan Drucker, an attorney and media studies professor at Hofstra University. While the war has been raging in Ukraine, Russian citizens remain unaware of the entirety of the situation. All independent press has been banned in Russia, social media outlets have been censored or banned and media laws have been passed that prevent media from publishing anything other than Putin’s approved messaging.
“TV stations and radio stations have shut down because they can’t even report on what’s happening in their own country,” said Cassidy Slamin, a senior video and television major. “The Kremlin is shutting down all forms of social media as much as they can, because they would rather not tell their citizens what’s going on than be faced with the facts.”
Social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook have been completely banned in Russia as of Friday, March 11, cutting Russian citizens off from the rest of the world. “They’re losing their own interpersonal communication freedoms as social media platforms are slowed and being blocked,” Drucker said.
These platforms were banned because they refused to post Russian propaganda that consisted of misinformation or censoring their content to not include information on the war in Ukraine. “I think it’s important for companies and organizations and governments that stand for democratic values to stand up to what’s going on in Ukraine and stand up to the Russian autocracy,” said Mark Lukasiewicz, dean of the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication. However, he does not want to see the Russian population deprived of information.
“A lot of Russian citizens aren’t getting the full story of what’s going on,” Slamin said. “I think it’s really a hindrance to free speech.”
Slamin is currently interning at ABC World News Tonight and has been helping with reporting being done by James Longman, their foreign correspondent based in Moscow. “Any piece that he’s in, we can’t use the word ‘war,’ we can’t show footage of Russian troops,” she said. “If he says that Russia’s at war, he could face 15 years in prison.”
A number of large media outlets such as CNN and BBC have pulled reporters from Russia because they refuse to report misinformation. “The new press law is particularly frightening because it essentially allows the government, under the color of law, to imprison reporters for telling the truth,” Lukasiewicz said.
Rebecca Fulman, a sophomore neuroscience major and secretary of the Hofstra Model United Nations, thinks that this type of censorship is detrimental to Russian citizens, saying that most people will not do the work to find accurate information. “The average person who puts on the radio when they’re going to work in the morning is going to take what they hear for face value,” she said.
This will create a misinformed population that will struggle to make educated decisions. “All of this legislation and the clampdown on free information is just going to expand the ability of Russian propaganda to reach Russian citizens and to influence their thinking,” Lukasiewicz said. “That’s tragic for them.”
“[I’m concerned about] the blueprint that is being provided for any repressive regime that would like to cut down and choke free expression,” Drucker said. “Putin’s government is offering a playbook for choking freedom of expression and freedom of the press in a modern media environment.”
She also points out that Russia has a constitution protecting freedom of expression and prohibiting censorship. “Constitutional freedoms don’t survive unless they’re protected or fed. Otherwise, it’s just words on a paper,” Drucker said.
Although the constitution has been established, if it is not protected, then an authoritarian power can ignore the freedoms it ensures. “Putin certainly has a firm grip on power right now from all indications and if he doesn’t want stories written or videos seen, he has a lot of power to make sure his will is carried out,” Lukasiewicz said.
Slamin thinks that this repression of free press in Russia is making people around the world more aware of their own freedoms of expression. “I think this has kind of been a wake-up call about what democracy means and what free press looks like,” she said.
Lukasiewicz agrees that freedom of the press is important and should be protected. “Freedom of information is just an absolute foundational value of liberal democracy and it’s really really important that we defend it,” he said. “Some Americans are seeing the value of a free press perhaps in a way they didn’t see it before by seeing the bravery of the journalists who are covering that story.”
Although it seems grim for Russian citizens, Drucker has hope there may be alternate ways for them to gain access to information. “Media regulators are always playing catchup to media technologies and media industries and the opportunities to break through the efforts to blockade and control will depend on how far behind the regulators are,” she said. “There may be a lag time. There may be a space in which the technologies and the media industries can outpace the regulators.”
While the war on media freedoms in Russia continues, Lukasiewicz says he will be thinking of and supporting journalists who are risking their lives or imprisonment in order to accurately and ethically report the news, fighting for freedom of expression.
