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Imagine finding yourself facing a sentence of 15 years in prison for spreading fake news!
And fake news here goes according to one side’s definition.
On Friday, the Russian parliament passed a law stipulating up to 15 years' imprisonment for those found guilty of deliberately spreading "fake" news about the military or fuelling informational warfare over the conflict in Ukraine.
According to Amnesty International, “The law introduces astronomical fines and up to 15 years in prison for ‘spreading fake news’ or for calling for sanctions for the Russian war in Ukraine.”
The armed forces of Russia have thus become sacred. The highest scale of punishment can go up to 15 years of prison for anyone who discredits the armed forces or advocates for sanctions against Russia.
The amendments appear to give the Russian state even more power to take strict unilateral action. “Literally by tomorrow, this law will force punishment – and very tough punishment – on those who lied and made statements which discredited our armed forces,” said Duma chairman Vyacheslav Volodin.
In other words, anyone who speaks out about the war in Russia could expose him/herself to severe penalties. The word “war” or “invasion” cannot be used in Russian media. The Kremlin, and the mainstream media controlled by it, portray the invasion of Ukraine as a limited "special operation", which aims at "protecting" Ukraine's Russian-speaking population from "genocide”.
President Vladimir Putin said the "special military operation" was essential after the United States expanded NATO's military alliance to the Russian border and assisted Kyiv's pro-Western leaders.
The Kremlin continues to accuse the media and social media of spreading inaccurate and false information about Russia's military operations in Ukraine. Russian officials claim that many of the stories published on social media are false. According to their narrative, a global "propaganda" campaign against the Russian army, malevolently reports that Russia is bombing residential buildings and targeting civilians.
The war of information aspires to strengthen the repressive grip of authorities who consolidate their control over information during an attack on Ukraine. International media outlets were blocked in Russia after being accused of deliberately and systematically circulating materials containing false information against Russia.
Russia also completely blocked access to Facebook following allegations that the social network "restricted" the accounts of four Russian media outlets. Roskomnadzor, Russia's tech and communications regulator, said in a statement on Friday that Facebook was violating "the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens," and that it had recorded 23 cases of "censorship" by the social network since October 2020.
Russia’s decision to block Facebook came after their request to remove the restriction on Russian official accounts and media outlets rejected Nick Clegg, the president of global affairs at Facebook’s parent company, Meta.
Roskomnadzor, Russia's state communications regulator, later announced that it had also restricted access to Twitter.
The iron fist that Russia tried to impose on the media was not a sporadic product of the moment. It was arranged and planned a long time ago, as it recruited several media professionals to only feed the people with the information that the government wants.
In a study conducted by RAND Corporation, Russian-language content on social media was examined along with the broader propaganda threat posed to the region of former Soviet states. As part of its sophisticated social media campaign, Russia posts news stories, tweets, comments on web pages without crediting the authors and trolls and bot accounts on social media. Since the 2014 Ukrainian revolution, this threat has manifested itself most prominently in Ukraine.
Misbar’s Sources
Amnesty
BuzzFeed News
One American News Outlet
Pivony
RAND Corporation
Reuters
The New York Times
