As Russia has stepped up its military campaign in Ukraine, the crackdown at home has intensified. The Kremlin has suppressed news sources that didn’t align with its world view, squashing the country’s last remaining independent media.
But even Vladimir Putin couldn’t quite plug all the gaps as the truth about the reality of his deadly campaign continued to trickle back to Russians at home. Frequently this was happening via social media. At the time of the invasion, an increasing number of Russians, nearly 40 per cent, according to the independent Russian polling organisation Levada Center, most often got their news this way.
With reliable mainstream sources of information on the war fast running dry, many were turning to platforms such as Instagram and Facebook to find out what was truly going on, as well as to spread anti-war messages. By 21 March, both Meta-owned platforms were banned in Russia; access to Twitter had also been severely restricted.
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