But Mary says her mother believes what she sees on Russian state television, where the Russian invasion is portrayed as a righteous military campaign to liberate Ukraine from the Nazis. Various visions led to heated arguments, and after one that left her mother in tears, Mary vowed to stop talking to her about the war.
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Some Russians – often with social, educational or professional ties to the United States and Western Europe – are trying to burst Russian President Vladimir Putin’s propaganda bubble, sometimes leaving them at odds with their families, friends and colleagues. The war in Ukraine only widens the gulf that already existed between the young, tech-savvy people and the older generation, who get their news mostly from TV and have always been more comfortable with Putin’s vision of the country.
According to the World Bank, nearly 85 percent of the country’s population is online. But only a few of them use American social networks. According to research company eMarketer, in 2022, about half of Russian Internet users were on Instagram, and only a small part were on Facebook and Twitter.
Many Russians who go online have come to rely on a range of digital tools to outsmart Russian censors. They seek independent news about the war on the Internet, separating them from others whose information comes from government propaganda flooding television, government-supported websites and large social media groups that remain unrestricted, such as Telegram or VK, which are home to many supporters. government groups.
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This ideological divide was reflected in interviews with half a dozen people in Russia, who in most cases spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to violate the country’s fake news law.
“Shock, hatred and depression,” is how Moscow-based journalist Mikhail Shevelev describes the “very serious” and “abrupt” gap that has developed between people who read independent internet sources and those who mostly get their news from TV.
“It’s really difficult for anyone – even Russians who don’t live in Russia – to understand the extent of the absolutely illogical perception of information and outright lies,” he said.
Older Russians make up the main audience for Russian state TV news, which is flooded with reports of fake American bioweapons labs and Ukrainian “Nazis.”
At the same time, Putin is using increasingly sophisticated censorship techniques. In addition to recent restrictions on Facebook and Twitter, Russia has blocked the websites of many major Western media outlets, including Britain’s BBC and Germany’s Deutsche Welle. In response to sanctions and public pressure, major tech companies including Apple, Microsoft and Amazon have suspended some sales and services in the country, further fueling the emergence of the so-called “digital iron curtain”.
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Yet the Russians seem determined to get around the restrictions. According to analytics firm Sensor Tower, the top five VPNs on the Apple App Store and Google Play were downloaded 6.4 million times between February 24 and March 13. Three weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, the same VPN apps were downloaded. a total of 253,000 times.
Independent Russian media outlets that have taken their correspondents out of the country are still reporting on some developments in Ukraine, and there are still discussions in community groups on VKontakte, Russia’s most popular social network, according to Russians who spoke to The Washington Post. . Some Russians also find independent news on Telegram and YouTube, which Russia has not yet blocked.
Alexander, a tech worker in Moscow in his 20s, said he knows people who have unfriended each other online, posting that they will never again shake hands with a certain person because of their opinions about the war. “My aunt stopped talking to a few of her friends she had known for ages,” he said.
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Bot accounts thought to be run by government officials are spoiling the picture by commenting and posting pro-government messages on VK, says Daria, a 20-year-old Moscow resident. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell a bot from a real government supporter.”
Some Russians who use VPNs find the posts and discussions around the war too intense and stop them.
Lucy, a 29-year-old designer from Russia’s North Caucasus region, said she cut back on Instagram because of angry comments about Russians. She has relatives in Ukraine who had to flee the Russian attack, and she said she was half-Ukrainian herself. But the heated online environment pushed her away from social media engagement.
“At first I really sympathized with them. I may not be there, but because I am a very sensitive person, I feel the pain they go through,” she said. As the war progressed, she began receiving death threats online and unfollowed many of the Ukrainian accounts she followed. “It’s very hard to be accused of something you didn’t personally do,” Lucy said.
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Other young Russians say these online attacks on Russians are pushing some towards a more pro-military stance in line with the government. One Telegram channel was full of memes and posts decrying “Russophobia” and saying that Western countries are supporting Ukraine out of hatred for Russians.
One pro-government Telegram group with over 110,000 subscribers posted a video of it claiming volunteers were heading to Ukraine to help during the invasion. “We don’t need the whole world with us, dear friends. It is enough if all the Russian peoples are with us, ”the caption under the video read.
Putin’s years-long campaign to tighten control over Russia’s once open information ecosystem intensified in November 2019, when the country’s “sovereign Internet” law came into force. This law required ISPs in Russia to install government black boxes on their premises that would allow the government to control web traffic, giving the Russian government the power to slow down a site or block it entirely.
Some people in Russia are also turning to Tor, an open source system that provides anonymous communication, to visit services. Twitter and Facebook have created versions of their platforms that run software. Artem Kozlyuk, head of Russian digital rights group Roskomsvoboda, said he and others in the country are using an increasingly sophisticated combination of VPNs and dedicated browser plugins to access basic information on both their laptops and phones. His organization is compiling a guide to help people navigate the various services.
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“Right now, information goes through a lot of proxy systems, through a lot of obstacles, before reaching the users,” he said.
Despite the surge in interest in VPNs, the Kremlin’s crackdown has left many wary of sharing their political views online. And the two-level information system continues to dominate Russian opinion.
“A huge number of Russians, including myself, do not comment and do not share their opinion in social networks,” Daria said. “People who watch TV really believe that there are no civilian casualties and that our government is only fighting nationalists who are oppressing Russians living in Ukraine… People who read and watch government-controlled sources don’t see pictures of cities destroyed and people fleeing Ukrainians.”
Ilya Yablokov, a lecturer at the University of Sheffield who studies the Russian Internet, said he believes Russia’s censorship capabilities have so far allowed the government to successfully control narrative within the country. But this may not always be the case.
“It’s power control, it’s narrative control, it’s population control,” he said. “The question is, how long will they win?”
Heather Kelly and Craig Timberg contributed to this report.