Моя статья для English PEN
Worlds apart: Russia online and offline
In this week’s PEN Atlas piece, Arkady Babchenko writes on freedom of speech, media and the internet in Russia
Freedom of speech in Russia remains only on the internet. In fact, Russia exists in two parallel worlds, as it were, two roughly equal parts. According to the recent statistics, the number of internet users has matched the audience of the state-owned TV Channel One, which is the main propaganda tool of the authorities today. These two worlds do not cross at any point. A person who tries browsing the internet once will never go back to television. Internet users no longer want to watch the low-quality Russian TV which offers cheap propaganda of the sort that probably does not exist even in North Korea. Russian TV has been reduced to a downright rubbish heap. When my daughter was born five years ago I unplugged my TV and have never had any need for official TV news again. The Internet is much faster and provides more accurate and objective news. Moreover, it is not censored yet.
О свободе слова, СМИ и интернета в России
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