Following its invasion of Ukraine in February, authorities in Russia have clamped down on independent media and tightened their grip on the internet in order to control the narrative about the war. At least 150 journalists have left Russia since the start of the conflict and the passing of a “fake news” law that all but outlawed independent journalism in the country.
What’s happening in Russia and Ukraine right now “is directly related to the prosecution of independent media,” said Russian journalist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov during a virtual keynote at the Trust Conference 2022, hosted by Thomson Reuters Foundation in London in October.
The Kremlin is also blocking social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram from what it deems are “extremist” activities. Just last week, a Russian official was fired after asking President Vladimir Putin to end the ban.
Officials trying to restrict information online are also often the same ones who are producing disinformation, explained Irene Khan, the United Nations special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion, following a panel on legal trends hampering media freedom.
State-sponsored disinformation and propaganda during war is “far more harmful than any other source of disinformation because of the power of the state, its reach, the resources it has [at its] disposal, and its ability to shut off alternative narratives,” she told Devex on the sidelines of the Trust Conference.
According to Khan, the best response to disinformation is a tried and tested strategy: independent media. “The other strategy is if the state itself provides trustworthy, verifiable basic information,” she said.
With neither of those things currently happening in Russia, exiled journalists and independent media platforms are now trying to figure out how and where to relocate in order to continue reporting about their country and the war in Ukraine from abroad — and how to find new ways to fund their operations.
Many have turned to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin to enable the receipt of donations from international readers and organizations.
“If I'm a journalist and I'm in a country where there's either a sketchy political or economic situation, I absolutely would want to know how to use Tether [a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar] and Bitcoin. There's no question. It would really meaningfully improve my freedom and my work,” said Alex Gladstein, chief strategy officer at the Human Rights Foundation said at the Trust Conference in October.
Not long after, the cryptocurrency exchange FTX filed for bankruptcy amid allegations of financial wrongdoing — a vivid illustration of the risks associated with cryptocurrencies. The implosion of FTX sent crypto markets into turmoil and the prices of the leading cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ether plummeting.
In order to exchange Bitcoin into local currency, most people go through third parties such as a crypto exchange or a crypto broker — parties that could freeze their Bitcoins. “That’s the biggest risk, using an exchange or some sort of custodian,” Gladstein told Devex in London, adding in a more recent WhatsApp message that the FTX crash “underlines the importance of self-custodying Bitcoin…if you are using a bank or third party service you could lose all of your Bitcoin in an instant.”
Stablecoins remain unaffected for now — although they also carry risk and could get caught up in the current collapse, he explained. “This episode in general is a dramatic reminder that learning how to use Bitcoin as a parallel system for dissidents and media is more important than ever,” he wrote.
Another common risk is users not using cryptocurrencies properly, for example, by not storing their passwords correctly, he said. Users should also be aware that Bitcoin is volatile, but that stablecoins can play an important complementary role. The latest turmoil in the crypto markets might “push people away from random tokens and towards Bitcoin and stablecoins,” wrote Gladstein.
Meduza, a popular independent Russian-language news site, started asking contributors to send donations in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether when it discovered it could no longer use the payment platform Stripe to charge for subscriptions after international sanctions were imposed.
Earlier this year, the Human Rights Foundation donated $25,000 in Bitcoin to support the work of Russian independent media outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe led by Editor-in-Chief Dmitry Muratov. “It's very difficult for [Novaya Gazeta] to accept bank wire money, because they're all just uprooted and they had to flee Russia,” Gladstein said.
In July, Putin signed a bill into law prohibiting the use of digital assets such as cryptocurrency and NFTs to pay for goods and services. “Totalitarian regimes really don't like Bitcoin because it erodes their power and they're scared of it because they don't control it,” Gladstein said. “Which is another reason why human rights activists are pretty excited about it.”
For the many Russian journalists and media outlets that have had to set up shop elsewhere — many have installed themselves in cities such as Riga, Tbilisi, or Istanbul — crypto donations allow them to continue reporting on the war and provide independent news to their readers.
However, “we might be seeing fewer donations of tokens because their value is collapsing,” wrote Gladstein. Independent Russian media might now find it more difficult to secure funding, although outlets such as Meduza keep asking for donations in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Tether.
Update, Nov. 22, 2022: More information has been added throughout the article to illustrate the impact of the crypto exchange FTX filing for bankruptcy and sending crypto markets into turmoil. The headline was also updated to clarify that receiving donations in crypto might help Russian journalists in exile.
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