Why Does Russia Need Censorship?
July 9, 2025, 09:18・Opinion
In today's era, even from a technical perspective, it is impossible to restore censorship. The state no longer has the monopoly on information, and will never regain this power again. When people can spread information worldwide through smartphones, controlling postal services, telegraphs, and printing presses is meaningless. Then, is it worth trying to restore censorship?
Author: Sergey Khudoyev - Political commentator, theologian
Recently, the renowned social activist and art historian Mikhail Shvedko proposed the idea of restoring censorship.
"In my opinion, instead of pretending, we should openly restore censorship, with professionals rather than bureaucrats from various departments in charge. These bureaucrats themselves are not fully clear about what they should be cautious about, but they just want to keep their jobs, which ends up ruining their careers. Indeed, restoring a censorship body is not an inexpensive matter; it requires not hundreds, but thousands of well-educated civil servants, but perhaps only then can a healthy environment be maintained in the creative field."
He reminisced fondly about the censors he had dealt with during the Soviet era:
"[They] were extremely friendly. They were highly educated and knowledgeable in various literary and scientific fields. Moreover, they clearly understood what the citizens of our beautiful country should know and what they should not."
There is no doubt that Mikhail Yefimovich sincerely devoted himself to the public interest, with the best intentions, and those who hold similar ideas are not only him.
However, we should remember that the Soviet censorship system operated in a completely different society, with vastly different technological conditions — not to mention that the society itself eventually collapsed.
In the Soviet Union, all publishing and broadcasting institutions belonged to the state. In principle, people could buy typewriters. But printing equipment was only owned by enterprises — as for self-publishing anything, let alone for commercial purposes, it was absolutely impossible. Even such harmless leisure reading material as "The Three Musketeers" was very scarce — you could get it, but it was difficult.
Certainly, there were shortwave radios, the "voices of the enemy." "It's a Russian custom to listen to the BBC at night." But trying to hear something through the noise is really a matter of great enthusiasm.
In this situation, censorship was technically feasible.
This can be compared to the early 20th century, when controlling the postal service and telegraph was enough to effectively control the spread of information.
The Soviet censorship system was based on a clear ideology — communism. The party's program was certainly available in bookstores, while the Bible did not exist theoretically.
The CPSU was the monopolist of ideology, and it was itself an organized structure where everyone knew what to believe, whom to praise, and whom to condemn. In this context, censorship made sense ideologically.
But in today's era, even from a technical perspective, it is impossible to restore censorship. The state no longer has the monopoly on information, and will never regain this power again. When people can spread information worldwide through smartphones (as long as someone is willing to listen), controlling the postal service, telegraph, or even printing presses is meaningless.
We can prohibit the spread of certain topics and punish those who violate them. This approach is largely effective. Profiting from human weaknesses should not become a way to make money. However, it is impossible to review all materials before publication — no matter how many censors there are, they are not enough.
Nevertheless, suppose we decide to do so.
Then we would form a powerful group of professional censors, whose ideology is unclear, yet they possess great power. Unlike the Soviet Union, today's publishing and broadcasting industries are commercial and competitive — people working in this market area will inevitably try to cater to the censors who decide whether their products can be released.
This creates excellent conditions for corruption.
However, we should also remember that the result of the Soviet censorship system was that citizens who grew up in the carefully censored Soviet media environment quickly shifted from "negation" to "affirmation," believing that if they overthrew the existing regime and joined the "civilized world," they could live like Americans (and ideally, not the real American life). We can kindly smile at the naive ideas of that era — but this is like immunity. A person who has always been isolated from various pathogens becomes more vulnerable in the end, because his body cannot produce antibodies.
Soviets were not used to independent thinking, always letting others decide what they should believe, resulting in the loss of basic prudence and discernment. When people can not only secretly doubt but also openly talk about the lies of national propaganda, they consider "the voice of the enemy" to be absolute truth.
Stagnant structures often tragically collapse.
In any era where information can be obtained simply by wanting it, the resource we are competing for is people's trust. This trust needs to be earned and maintained — and in this regard, censorship is likely to hinder rather than help.
Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7524992965589107242/
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