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Vladimir Putins government continues to call Russias February 24 invasion of Ukraine a special military operation and has instituted harsh punishments for media outlets that do not hew to the state line. However, some foreign-based media have bypassed Russian censorship in various ways, providing Russian citizens vital access to facts about the war.

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It is nearly impossible. The few remaining Russian independent media outlets with any sizeable followings, notably TV Rain and the radio station Echo of Moscow, shut down following Putins signing of the March 4 fake news law, which threatens imprisonment for any journalist who deviates from the Kremlins portrayal of the conflict in Ukraine. Many Western outlets shut down their Russia bureaus as well, depriving their audiences of access to news from within the country.

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Meanwhile, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other foreign social media platforms that disseminate Russian-language information are blocked, and TikTok temporarily banned users in Russia from uploading new content. But YouTube and the encrypted message app Telegram, which are used heavily by state propaganda sources, are reportedly still available and widely used in Russia.

The March 4 law followed years of mounting government pressure on media outlets, and surveys have shown that most Russians get their news from state television. Official media typically downplay the severity of the conflict in Ukraine while echoing Kremlin falsehoods about what it calls a peacekeeping operation against Ukrainian aggressors.

Still, news of the invasion appeared to spur protests in cities across Russia, leading to an estimated fifteen thousand arrests in the first three weeks of the war. In addition, thousands more Russians reportedly fled the country as the war intensified and tough Western-backed sanctions kicked in, though that could mean fewer dissenting voices remain within Russia.

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Yes, but this has become more of a challenge. Since the invasion, the government has blocked the Russian-language websites of media outlets including the BBC, Latvia-based Meduza, the U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) and Voice of America (VOA), and Germanys Deutsche Welle. These organizations were already under increasing Kremlin pressure from a foreign agents law instituted last year and had largely closed their bureaus in Moscow due to the draconian media law signed in March.

Despite the crackdown, these media outlets say they had large Russian audiences in the pre-invasion months. RFE/RL, which began broadcasts in Russian in 1953, said in a news release that the extensive network of websites run by its Russian Service attracted a monthly average of more than twenty million page views in 2021, and that its videos were viewed nearly three hundred million times that year on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube. Its YouTube videos have attracted millions more views since the invasion began. The BBC said its Russian-language news website reached more than ten million visits per week in the early phases of the war.

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Its not clear whether they can replicate these audiences given the current censorship, but just this week, data from Apples App Store and Googles Play Store showed that twelve of the top twenty apps in Russia were virtual private networks (VPNs), which disguise a users location and help access region-restricted content, and Telegram was the fifth-most-downloaded app.

The intensified media clampdown reflects the Kremlins concern about the impact that real news would have on Russian citizens. Experts say exposure to objective reporting on the military campaign, including the indiscriminate attacks on civilians, could be influential to the Russian public.

The efforts underway by trusted agencies such as the BBC, RFE/RL, and VOA in some ways hearken back to the Cold War era when, primarily as broadcasters, they developed major news-gathering operations to try to reach audiences behind the Iron Curtain. Research has shown that those broadcasts played an important role in informing both regime elites and citizens in the former communist bloc.

Russian media experts also express concern that intensifying Western-led international sanctions on Russia could have the unintended effect of severing many Russians from the internet at a time when they crave straight information. Its gonna be pretty grim, and its pretty unfair to young Russians who would want to maintain some connection with this world that now rejects them, Meduzas Alexey Kovalev said in an interview with the University of Oxfords Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. I hope the outside world finds a way to incorporate young Russians into the global community.

Antonio Barreras Lozano contributed to this report.

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Russia Is Censoring News on the War in Ukraine. Foreign Media Are Trying to Get Around That. - Council on Foreign Relations

TargetingS, a Redmond-based company, has spent the last 20 days helping independent media report on the war from inside and outside of Russia, all free of charge.

REDMOND, Wash. In Russia, President Vladimir Putin has blocked access to independent news sites and Western media. TargetingS, a Redmond-based company, is responding to the war censorship in a big way.

They are using their technology to fight for the truth. In order to make that happen, TargetingS is reacting in real time, according to Chris Deco, the company's general manager of North America.

"We're helping these these independent media outlets play that game of Whack-A-Mole with Putin and the oppressive regime there," said Deco.

Val Khotemlyansky is the vice president of product development for TargetingS. He was born in Russia, but left the country 30 years ago.

"I think that our job is very important," said Khotemlyansky. "Our goal is to bring the truth to Russian citizenship and citizenship around the globe."

For the past 20 days, they have been helping independent media outlets to keep publishing. A prime example is the widely-shared video of a 'No War' sign being displayed during a government-run newscast in Russia.

"One of our partners that's operating within Russia, Republic, was able to publish that across social media networks using the TargetingS platform. They've been banned. However, as they continue to pivot, where they're able to post that information, we're able to grab it and distribute it to multiple networks and messengers," said Deco.

Deco said objective content is still finding a way to break through even as Russia works to control information.

"Democracy dies in darkness. We want to keep the lights on, and we will champion and hope everybody else will do the same," said Deco.

They are providing this service free of charge as they pivot with their partners, who are navigating censorship and blocked access in Russia.

"This is the fight for freedom of the press and expression and basic human rights. And we're going to do what we can to help," Deco said.

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Redmond company fighting censorship in Russia amid Ukraine invasion - KING5.com

Bruce Lawson from Birmingham, England, has sent approximately 100 texts to strangers in Russia about the true extent of the war in Ukraine during the past week, he told Insider.

The software engineer said he has been copying chunks of prewritten Russian-language text provided by the Polish hacktivist group Squad303 and sending SMS messages to randomly selected numbers between business meetings.

"It's so easy to do," Lawson said. "I just get a new number, hit send, enter, get a new number, hit send, enter."

Lawson has been using 1920.in, an online tool designed to cut through Russian President Vladimir Putin's censorship, which The Wall Street Journal notes use a bank of nearly 140 million Russian email addresses and 20 million cell phone numbers.

Users can send texts, WhatsApp messages, or emails from anywhere in the world to inform Russians that soldiers and civilians are being killed in the deadly invasion of Ukraine that the Kremlin is trying to characterize as a "special military operation."

According to Squad303, who are connected to the Anonymous hacking collective, some 30 million messages have been sent to random Russians since the website was launched on March 6, Insider's Kieran Press-Reynolds reported.

Lawson started using the online tool last week, hoping that he might "change somebody's mind" and encourage a stranger to see beyond the lies that the Russian propaganda machine is pumping out.

So far, he's received a mixed response. "I've had a fair few, 'Fuck off, motherfucker,' messages," Lawson said. "But I've also had quite a few nice conversations with people who are saying, 'We don't want this either, and we're scared.'"

That's more than can be said for Nan, who asked to only be referred to by his first name due to the fear of being trolled. So far, the marketing executive from San Antonio, Texas, hasn't received a single response to any of his WhatsApp messages.

"Nobody wrote me back," he told Insider. "I'd say that about from the 14 people that I sent messages to, about 10 of them showed the double checkmark with the blue, which means they read it."

Nonetheless, Nan said he plans on continuing to send messages because he wants Russians to "really reconsider what they're hearing" about Ukraine from state media outlets.

A combination of censorship and propaganda is so effective the Ukrainians are struggling to persuade their relatives in Russia that their country is under attack, Insider's Mia Jankowicz reported.

Alexander Nielsen, a military analyst from Copenhagen, Denmark, was initially frustrated by the lack of responses to the deluge of texts he and his girlfriend had been sending. At first, he told Insider, he felt like he was sending messages "out into the void."

That was until he received a call from a number he had texted. Unable to speak Russian, Nielsen couldn't hold a conversation with the stranger, but, he said, it felt "empowering" to get a reply.

It made it clear that he spoke to "real people," he said. "It felt good to actually do something and be on the digital frontline," Nielsen added.

Energized by that call, Nielsen recruited his friend Kathrine Richter to join the international army of online volunteers sending messages via 1920.in.

Richter, who is Denmark's country-lead for the European political movement Volt Europa, told Insider that she has sent a handful of messages via the online tool and intends to continue doing so.

"Putin's Russia is being dislocated from the rest of the world, divorced from democracy, so we need more than ever to penetrate that and make some connections at a personal level with direct contact," Richter explained.

She said that sending these formulated texts to strangers might feel inconsequential but, Richter added, it still serves to make a difference.

"I think when we look at what's happening in Ukraine, we can't be complacent anymore," Richter continued. "We have to do everything we can, even if it's just a small thing."

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Meet the army of volunteers who are beating Putin's censorship by sending texts about the Ukraine war to Russian strangers - Business Insider Africa

Video-hosting platform Rumble is offering famed podcaster Joe Rogan a $100 million deal to leave Spotify and appear exclusively on the upstart YouTube competitor. The offer arrives amid Rogan facing calls from the cancel culture mob to remove him from Spotify over alleged misinformation regarding the Chinese coronavirus, and more recently, his past usage of the N-word during podcast episodes.

We stand with you, your guests, and your legion of fans in desire for real conversation. So wed like to offer you 100 million reasons to make the world a better place, Rumble said in a statement on Monday.

How about you bring all your shows to Rumble, both old and new, with no censorship, for 100 million bucks over four years? the video-sharing platform added in its statement. This is our chance to save the world. And yes, this is totally legit.

Spotify already has a$100 million exclusive deal with theJoe Rogan Experience podcast. The deal, however, includes thecensorshipof certain episodes of Rogans podcast.

Daniel Ek, CEO of Swedish music streaming service Spotify, gestures as he makes a speech at a press conference in Tokyo on September 29, 2016. Spotify kicked off its services in Japan on September 29. / AFP / TORU YAMANAKA (Photo credit should read TORU YAMANAKA/AFP via Getty Images)

Neil Young performs at Farm Aid 30 at FirstMerit Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island on Saturday, Sept. 19, 2015, in Chicago. (Photo by Rob Grabowski/Invision/AP)

Rogan has been under attack ever since hostingtwo guests Dr. Peter McCullough and Dr. Robert Malone on his podcast, who have an opinion thats different from the mainstream narrative regarding coronavirus-related issues, he said.

In reaction to Rogan hosting guests with different opinions on coronavirus topics,left-wing rocker Neil Young gave Spotify an ultimatum, demanding that thestreaming giant remove his music from the platform if it refuses to blacklist Rogans podcast.

When Spotify reacted by announcing it wouldpull Youngs music from the platform, the rocker called on other musicians to join him in removing their music as well, in an apparent attempt to further pressure Spotify to cave to his demands.

From there, Young was able to get a smallcohort of aging rockers to join him in his anti-Spotify crusade, with musicians David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash,Nils Lofgren, and Joni Mitchell making similar announcements shortly after.

But when that didnt appear to be picking up any further steam, singerIndia Arie who is perhaps best known for coming out against Rogan shared a video compilation of Rogan using the N-word, sans context.

Now, the focus of the cancel culture mob has shifted to attacking Rogan for his previous usage of the racial slur publicly on his podcast over the years.

On Friday, Rogan responded to the controversy, explaining, Its a video thats made of clips taken out of context of me of 12 years of conversations on my podcast, and its all smushed together, and it looks fucking horrible, even to me.

I know that to most people, theres no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, never mind publicly, on a podcast, and I agree with that now, he added.

Rogan went on to explain:

I havent said it in years, but for a long time, when I would bring that word up like if it were to come up in a conversation instead of saying the N-word, I would just say the word. I thought as long as it was in context, people would understand what I was doing.

Its not my word to use. Im well aware of that now, but for years I used it in that manner. I never used it to be racist, because Im not racist but whenever youre in a situation where you have to say, Im not racist, you fucked up. And I clearly have fucked up.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, however, said he will not remove Rogan from his platform, despite the resurfaced videos of him using the N-word.

Ek explainedthat while he strongly condemns Rogans incredibly hurtful language, he does not want to take a ride down the slippery slope of canceling voices.

At the time of publication, Rogan has not yet responded to Rumbles offer of $100 million for four years of his podcast on its platform with a commitment to zero censorship.

Rumble competitor Odysee did reply to the offer, making its own mocking offer to Rogan of 100 gazillion bucks.

You can follow AlanaMastrangelo onFacebookand Twitter at@ARmastrangelo, and onInstagram.

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Rumble Offers Joe Rogan $100 Million Four-Year Deal with ...

In March 2022, Russia took censorship to new extremes, blocking access to Facebook and enacting a law that threatened to punish coverage of its war on Ukraine with forced labor and imprisonment. To what extent does censorship actually reduce activity on banned media among different societal groups in the context of international conflict?

A new study published inThe Journal of Politicsexamines this question by exploring the effect of a 2017 Ukrainian ban on online activity among Russian social media users with close affiliations to Ukraine and Russia.

Authoritarian and nonauthoritarian states alike use censorship to police cyberspace, notes author Yevgeniy Golovchenko in Fighting Propaganda with Censorship: A Study of the Ukrainian Ban on Russian Social Media. In recent years, an increasing number of European states and tech firms have used it to combat digital disinformation and foreign interference.

Even before the Russian attacks in 2022, Ukraine offered some of the most extreme examples of censorship used to respond to information war and online propaganda from abroad. In 2017, the Ukrainian government issued an executive order that forced internet service providers to block access to major Russian websites, including VKontakte, the second most visited social media platform in Ukraine. The Kremlins control over Russian social media was one of the reasons why the Ukrainian government viewed the VKontakte ban as a national security measure against Russian propaganda and surveillance.

Censorship may successfully limit overall access to information, or it can backfire and draw attention to the forbidden or political outrage. Even if a government succeeds in partially reducing the overall online activity on forbidden media, the ban may backfire if the supporters of the regime become less active on the censored platform than the opposition, Golovchenko writes. The government would risk making the opposition more prevalent on the platform than the supporters of the regime.

Golovchenko uses publicly available data from VKontakte and a natural experiment research design to estimate the causal effect of the ban on online activity among different user groups. The findings indicate that a vast majority of Ukrainians on VKontakte could circumvent censorship by logging on through tools like VPN. However, the Ukrainian government still succeeded in reducing the overall online activity among Ukrainians on the Russian platform. Government attempts at curbing Russian influence reduced the wall posting activity on VKontakte among users with pro-Russian attitudes at least as much as among pro-Ukrainian users, notes Golovchenko, who found the same pattern when comparing citizens in Ukraine with few social ties to citizens within Russia versus those embedded in the Russian social network.

Even without legal repercussions for circumventing the ban, the increased access time and effort is enough to disrupt online activity among pro-Russian (and pro-Ukrainian) users, who would instead shift to cheaper and more accessible alternatives. In other words, the accessibility of the media appears to play a much more important role in the decision to use censored social media than do politics or social ties with citizens in the hostile state, Golovchenko writes.

The results are favorable from the perspective of the censor, who wishes to combat foreign propaganda and disinformation by using one of the most drastic countermeasures available, he writes. He went on to speculate, If Russia were to use its newly upgraded censorship infrastructure to ban Facebook to prevent foreign influence, one would expect the ban to be successful from the point of view of the government if Russians were to respond in a similar manner as Ukrainians have. Now that such a ban has come to pass, the effects of its harsher censorship remain to be seen.

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Fighting Propaganda With Censorship: A Study Of Ukrainian Ban On Russian Social Media - Eurasia Review