When Do Private Actors Engage in Censorship? Evidence From a Correspondence Experiment with Russian Private Media Firms

Abstract

In authoritarian regimes, repression encourages private actors to censor not only themselves, but also other private actors—a behavior we call “regime-induced private censorship.” We present the results of a correspondence experiment conducted in Russia that investigates the censorship behavior of private media firms. We find that such firms censor third-party advertisements that include anti-regime language, calls for political or non-political collective action, or both. Our results demonstrate the significance of other types of censorship besides state censorship in an important authoritarian regime and contribute to the rapidly growing literature on authoritarian information control.

When Censorship Works: Exploring the Resilience of News Websites to Online Censorship

“…Additional analyses show that, in particular, larger, independent, Islamist opposition and permanently blocked outlets suffered from being filtered. In conclusion, these findings speak to the broader literature on state repression and information control, and provide evidence that digital censorship efforts often reduce the consumption and provision of alternative political information (Davenport 2007 Apart from the direct consequences of censorship, experimental evidence from Russia documents that news websites are more likely overall to self-censor in repressive environments (Beazer et al 2021). In addition to internet censorship, several news outlets are also facing legal and repressive actions in Egypt (RSF 2022).…”

“…Apart from the direct consequences of censorship, experimental evidence from Russia documents that news websites are more likely overall to self-censor in repressive environments (Beazer et al 2021). In addition to internet censorship, several news outlets are also facing legal and repressive actions in Egypt (RSF 2022).…”

“Vse (Everyone) Online?”: an exploration of the evolution of the Russian Federation's digital government portal during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…This speaks to the “dynamics of valuation” at play with digital government (Madsen et al, 2016 ). Private companies in Russia have also shown a willingness to censor anti-regime messages (Baezer et al, 2021 ) and to engage in voter intimidation (Frye et al, 2019 ), and they profit when businessperson candidates win municipal and regional offices (Szakonyi, 2020 ). This represents a form of “substitutional delegation” (Hedberg, 2016 ), where the Russian state relies on the private sector to carry out public functions.…”

A story of (non)compliance, bias, and conspiracies: How Google and Yandex represented Smart Voting during the 2021 parliamentary elections in Russia

“…Under these circumstances, the decisions of online intermediaries concerning the implementation of removal requests play a key role in mediating the impact of censorship. Depending on these decisions, intermediaries might limit the visibility of outlets spreading extremist or false claims, but also facilitate state censorship by integrating it with "private censorship" (i.e., censorship effort by private companies) (see Beazer et al, 2021;Crabtree et al, 2015) or amplifying self-censorship practices (e.g., of Russian journalists in the aftermath of the annexation of Crimea) (Schimpfössl et al, 2020;Zeveleva, 2020). This raises questions about the feasibility of one-size-fits-all regulation of intermediaries' activities that would be applicable to their operations across democratic and non-democratic contexts, especially in the case of countries with long-standing censorship traditions (e.g., Russia and many other post-Communist states) (Ognyanova, 2019).…”