Censorship in Russia is as old as the nation’s mass media.
Imperial censors banned or cut Leo Tolstoy’s books and imprisoned Fyodor Dostoyevsky in Siberia when the writers questioned the czar’s authority. After the Revolution, an army of bureaucrats vetted everything that was published or shown in the country for signs of capitalist heresy.
More recently, President Vladimir V. Putin has rolled back the freedom of expression that briefly flourished after the Soviet Union’s collapse and created a more subtle system of cultural control.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, Russians have been seeking respite from the upheaval of war on their screens. The country’s movie and TV streaming platforms have boomed, gaining millions of subscribers and tripling sales since 2022, according to industry data. And despite wartime sanctions imposed by the West, Russia’s homegrown equivalents of Netflix continue to offer hundreds of American films and series, including the latest hits.
But what Russians see on their screens is very different from the originals.
There is no intimacy between men, no talk of abortion, no logos of banned companies or jokes about Putin, for example. By August, censors had cut at least 64 hours of content from 152 Western series, an ongoing data analysis by the independent Russian news outlet Mediazona shows.
‘And Just Like That…’
Season 2 Episode 10
Che, a nonbinary character, discusses using they/them pronouns with a co-worker. The censors cut out references to the pronouns, rendering the scene nonsensical.
Mediazona’s findings shed light on the Kremlin’s efforts to distort Russians’ views of the world, isolating them from ideas that contradict Putin’s ultranationalist policies and conservative social agenda. They also raise questions about whether American production companies have a role in defending artists’ creative freedom and protecting their work from political interference.
Russia’s government does not issue explicit content rules or guidelines to the entertainment industry. Instead, media workers have to guess what would please or anger the Kremlin, and predict how its views might evolve. Most err on the side of caution. If they guess wrong, they risk fines, ostracism and even imprisonment.
To determine the scale of the censorship, Mediazona used a software algorithm to compare original shows with the versions available on a Russian streaming service called Amediateka.
‘The White Lotus’
Season 1 Episode 2
Olivia, on vacation with her wealthy family, makes a passing reference to Vladimir Putin at a dinner table. Her tongue-in-cheek remark on the moral price of power left the censors unamused.
Amediateka, which did not respond to questions for this article, has a small share of Russian subscribers but is a major distributor of shows from American production companies, including HBO and AMC. When Russians stream Western TV, they most likely watch dubbed and censored versions, either on Amediateka’s website or on domestic platforms that buy them for distribution. These versions are significantly shorter than the originals.
The 114 HBO and HBO Max shows that were available on Amediateka by early this year, for example, have lost over 36 hours to censorship. Amediateka’s dubbing into Russian also alters the translation of dialogue that features taboo topics.
At best, these changes alter the meaning of the original works. At worst, they make the shows unintelligible.
In the CBS comedy series “Ghosts,” for example, references to the marriage between two gay characters are translated as a “friendship alliance.” The episode about their marriage ceremony has been cut entirely, leaving a hole in the plot.
In an episode of the HBO current affairs show, “Axios,” the censors cut out the swearing-in ceremony of Pete Buttigieg as transportation secretary, which showed his husband, Chasten Glezman, standing next to him.
‘The Wire’
Season 1 Episode 5
The displays of affection between Omar Little, a Baltimore gangster, and his boyfriend, Brandon, were erased. This dilutes the plot, making it difficult to understand why Omar goes on a vengeance spree after Brandon’s murder.
Even passing glimpses of symbols associated with L.G.B.T. people — a rainbow in the background, or merely a combination of colors resembling one — can be enough to get an entire scene cut, said Mika Golubovsky, a Mediazona journalist who helped analyze the Amediateka data from exile in Lithuania.
Mediazona’s analysis shows that Amediateka has also cut discussions of themes that are controversial but legal in Russia, including abortion and unconventional erotic practices, such as bondage. But most of the censorship relates to the portrayal of either global affairs or gender and sexuality.
Since the outbreak of the war, Russia’s government has stepped up legal attacks on L.G.B.T. people, declaring the gay rights movement an “extremist organization.” About 20 people have been jailed under this law, and hundreds of others were fined for violating other L.G.B.T.-related restrictions.
The Kremlin has meted out even harsher punishments for any criticism of its war in Ukraine. Hundreds of people have been imprisoned for treason or “discrediting the Russian army,” some merely for liking social media posts related to war.
While Russians can avoid the censorship by downloading pirated TV series or by using virtual private networks to reroute their internet traffic, these workarounds are becoming more difficult as the government steps up internet controls.
‘The Walking Dead’
Season 2 Episode 6
Lori Grimes decides whether to bring a baby into a zombie-infested world or to terminate her pregnancy. The censors made the choice for her, cutting displays of emergency contraception pills.
American production companies generally do not inform artists about how their work is presented in different markets, said Sara Ramirez, a nonbinary actor whose role was heavily censored in the Russian version of TV series “And Just Like That.”
Ramirez said they had not been aware of the cuts until approached for comment by The New York Times.
“It is disappointing, but not surprising given the context and the global political climate we are in,” Ramirez said via email, adding: “Queer and trans people will continue to exist in our full humanity regardless of how the entertainment industrial complex co-opts, monetizes and presents us.”
When David Simon, the creator of the hit HBO series “The Wire,” became aware of cuts to the show in Russia last year, he addressed Russian leaders directly in a post on X.
“Omar Little of Baltimore, Maryland is unapologetically gay,” Simon wrote, referring to a gangster in the show whose scenes were altered to obscure his sexuality. The character was “more badass and tactically effective than all of the conscripts and paroled thugs you’ve sent into the meat-grinder in Ukraine,” Simon added.
How Amediateka continues to show some of the latest Western shows in Russia is a mystery. Strict sanctions make it mostly illegal for Western companies to receive payments from Russia. And after the invasion, many Western businesses said they were leaving Russia even before the strongest sanctions took effect, to avoid reputational costs.
One of those companies was HBO’s parent company, WarnerMedia.
“Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, WarnerMedia is pausing all new business in Russia,” the company’s chief executive at the time, Jason Kilar, said in a widely reported memo to employees in March 2022. “This includes ceasing broadcast of our channels, halting all new content licensing with Russian entities and pausing our planned theatrical and games releases.”
‘Game of Thrones’
Season 2 Episode 7
The censors removed the portrayal of carnal love between the siblings Cersei and Jaime Lannister at the core of the series’s plot. The cuts went beyond sex scenes. Even Cersei’s discussion of her incestuous “sins” was removed.
Yet since then, Amediateka has added at least 46 new TV seasons created by WarnerMedia subsidiaries to its database, according to Mediazona’s analysis. This includes the third season of HBO’s dark comedy “The White Lotus,” which was released this year.
Amediateka also premiered several new HBO shows since Kilar announced a pause on new releases in Russia. This includes the fantasy show “House of the Dragon,” which was added in August 2022.
HBO signed an exclusive Russian licensing deal with Amediateka’s parent company, Amedia, in 2017. But Megan MacLeod, an HBO spokeswoman, said the company no longer had a licensing agreement in Russia, and declined to answer further questions, including about how new HBO shows come to Russia without prompting copyright litigation.
An AMC spokeswoman confirmed that it licenses content to Amediateka, but declined to provide additional details. She said it was common for broadcasters to adapt content to the cultural sensitivities and broadcasting standards of different markets.
Golubovsky, the Mediazona journalist, questioned whether Amediateka’s cuts represented prevalent Russian cultural attitudes. At the very least, he said, the streaming companies’ accommodation to local standards should not come at the expense of a coherent plot.
“It’s really hard to imagine how a Russian viewer is supposed to follow stories that have been butchered like this,” Golubovsky said. “The narratives just don’t make any sense.”