Russia Seeks to Punish Expats Who Criticize War on Social Media
July 13, 2022
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4:06Now PlayingRussia Seeks to Punish Expats Who Criticize War on Social Media
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as posted by the channelMichael Nacke, a popular YouTube personality based in Lithuania, said his phone started blowing up with text messages one May evening asking if he was a “foreign agent.”
Friends and family had spotted his name in a news article claiming that Nacke, a Russian native, had been charged with disseminating false information about that country’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. The charge stemmed from a March 16 video about an alleged Russian attack on a Ukrainian nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia, an incident the Kremlin denied.
It turns out Nacke wasn’t designated an agent, but charged under a new Russian law that bans anyone from criticizing military operations in Ukraine. If he returns home to Russia, Nacke faces as many as 10 years in prison.
Nacke is one of several Russian-born social media influencers living outside the country that Moscow is trying to censor using a combination of criminal charges and pressure on technology companies, according to a series of interviews and Russian court documents obtained by Bloomberg News. The effort to silence critical expats living outside Russian borders coincides with a broader crackdown on dissent closer to home. Authorities have detained more than 16,300 people in Russia for voicing opposition to the war, according to the Russian human rights group OVD-Info, for alleged crimes including placing antiwar leaflets in a grocery store and holding signs that say “Mir,” the Russian word for “peace.”
While the exact number of Russians charged in absentia is difficult to quantify, Moscow is already using the fake news law, passed in March, to stifle independent voices on social media platforms where many young people consume their news, according to Stanislav Seleznev, a lawyer at Net Freedoms Project.
Besides Nacke, Russia has charged several other expatriates who have criticized the war on social media.
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