On July 25, Russia’s upper house approved a new censorship law that introduces fines for anyone caught searching for or accessing content officially labeled as “extremist.” The law will take effect once signed by Russia’s president Vladimir Putin. The sweeping legislation doesn’t stop there — it also imposes penalties for promoting VPN services, the very tools many Russians rely on to bypass government censorship and access blocked information.
After Russia’s lower house, the State Duma, endorsed the law on July 22, a small group of people outside Russia’s parliament, for the first time in a long while. One of the signs read “For a Russia without censorship. Orwell wrote a dystopia, not a manual.” Police quickly detained the man holding it.
The classic dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, published in 1949, is widely interpreted as a warning against totalitarian rule, inspired by the government oppression the author observed in and Stalinism.
Another protester was , who had been expected to be the only liberal candidate in the 2024 presidential election. At the time, the electoral commission refused to register his candidacy.
“The first stage was banning websites. Now they’re banning people from searching the internet. This is already close to thoughtcrime,” Nadezhdin told DW, alluding to Orwell’s same novel, and its central theme of citizens being punished for thinking differently than the state.
What is ‘extremist’ content in Russia?
The new legislation stands out even among the dozens of censorship laws the State Duma has passed before and after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. According to the bill, simply searching for so-called “extremist materials” online will now be considered an administrative offense, punishable with a fine of up to the equivalent of €55 ($64). Previously, punishment required some form of engagement with banned material, such as posting a critical comment on social media.
What counts as extremist materials is defined by a list maintained by Russia’s Justice Ministry. It currently contains over 5,000 entries. Officials and lawmakers claim the law targets those who systematically seek banned content, not average citizens casually browsing, but have not offered clarification over what constitutes systematic searches.
The registry features flyers, pamphlets, books, newspapers, films, video clips, works of visual art, and songs. In theory, it is meant to include content that incites interethnic hatred, as well as writings by leaders of Germany’s ‘ Party and Italy’s fascist party.
In reality, the list also includes works criticizing the government, or speaking out against authorities. One of them is the 2002 book by Russian defector and former Federal Security Service (FSB) officer Alexander Litvinenko. Titled Lubyanka Criminal Group, this nonfiction work details how Russian security services allegedly staged the bombing of residential buildings in Moscow in 1999 and other terror acts in an effort to help Putin rise to power.
The blacklist also includes materials from the religious movement Jehovah’s Witnesses, which Russia designated as extremist in 2017.
In 2023, journalists from the independent Russia news outlet 7×7 reported that the list of “extremist” materials has been growing by hundreds of new entries every year. Between 2011 and 2022, nearly 15,500 administrative cases were opened for the distribution of “extremist” content. That’s an average of 1,300 cases per year, most of which resulted in fines of up to about €50.
The growing number of ‘extremists’ in Russia
The law has sparked widespread public outcry, with even ordinarily pro-Kremlin figures posting critical messages on social media. Margarita Simonyan, for example, editor-in-chief of the , complained that the new law would prevent her from investigating and “shaming” extremist organizations.
Since the start of , authorities have added dozens of prominent Russians and organizations critical of the war to its list of banned extremists and terrorists. Among them are writers, musicians, journalists, and popular bloggers, including, for example, the writer , or TV host .
, behind Facebook and Instagram, was declared extremist in March 2022, following an announcement that the company would permit posts endorsing the killing of Russian soldiers on its platforms, which Russia said constituted “Russophobia.”
State Duma deputy head Sergei Boyarsky, from the conservative ruling United Russia party, sought to reassure citizens, claiming that using Meta’s social networks, or searching for materials created by people declared extremists would not be punished. According to him, fines would only apply to searches for content officially classified as extremist.
In reality, it’s hard to predict how Russian police will enforce the new law. “Everything will depend on the particular person in uniform who’s been given the power to interpret your guilt,” Dmitry Zair-Bek, head of the human rights legal project Pervy Otdel, told DW.
According to him, it’s likely that, as is already happening, Russians’ phones will increasingly be checked during border inspections.
Belarus scenario
Another possible scenario would be if Russia adopted the kind of policing practices used in neighboring . There, platforms like , , and , which are blocked in Russia, remain accessible. However, subscribing to banned channels on these platforms is prohibited.
“Censorship in Belarus exists in physical space. Police are asking to check citizens’ phones on trains and in student dormitories. Refusing is nearly impossible,” Dmitriy Navosha, a co-founder of the international online sports publisher Tribuna.com told DW. Access to his website is not restricted in Belarus, but the site was labeled as extremist after Navosha repeatedly spoke out against Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko and the security forces’ violent crackdown on protesters in 2020.
As a result of the extremism label, visitors to the online sports site risk punishment simply for viewing its content.
At least 10,000 political prisoners
Since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has severely tightened restrictions on free speech, such as banning the spreading of what it deemed “false information” about the war, and tightening “foreign agent” designations for outlets and organizations considered to be politically active with the help of foreign funding.
In the spring, the governmental anti-corruption agency, the Russian Investigative Committee, reported that had been opened under two new articles of the Criminal Code since 2022 — one for spreading “fake news” about the Russian army, and another for “discrediting” the armed forces.
Under these laws, Russian citizens have been fined or imprisoned for calling Russia’s actions in Ukraine a war, rather than a “special military operation,” as well as for posting on social media about events such as the killing of civilians by Russian soldiers in the Ukrainian town of .
At the end of 2024, the human rights organization Memorial reported that at least 10,000 political prisoners were being held in detention across Russia. When Russian President Vladimir Putin signs this new law, the number of people being punished for exercising free speech could rise significantly.
Edited by: M. Sass
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