A pirate solution to break through Russian censorship

[This project was presented at The Fix Foundation’s first knowledge sharing session – an event for media development professionals to share insights, hear about exciting case studies and new ideas. To learn more about The Foundation’s work or attend future events, sign up for their newsletter]

A creative solution to bypass censorship involves embedding news items in subtitle files and uploading these on pirated movie websites. The idea, developed by Belgian creative agency Lucy and named reCaptions, aims to bring news about Russia’s war in Ukraine to Russian viewers living in a disinformation bubble.

The already repressive Putin regime cracked down further on free press in the wake of the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In the following days and weeks Russia blocked international outlets like BBC Russian News Service or RFE/RL and even platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Others left voluntarily – streaming giant Netflix left the country in March 2022 in protest to Russia’s invasion. 

This has left millions lost in a bubble of pro-government propaganda. While news is generally accessible via VPN, apps or messenger services like Telegram, many people in Russia simply don’t make the effort to seek out reliable information. A depressing 63% get their news from television, an almost unadulterated source of propaganda.

Targeting people disengaged from news

Enter reCaptions, a project launched in early summer by Lucy. The idea is relatively simple: millions of Russians watch pirated movies and TV shows each year and many need to download Russian subtitles. To do so, they go to a myriad of websites, like Opensubtitles.org or ThePrirateBay.org. [Note: reCaptions is keeping its list of used sites confidential].

“The core of the idea was to reach Russians who don’t watch the news much. Hacking illegal downloads is an interesting way of sharing info about the events that are really happening in Ukraine instead of what they see on state TV,” explained Laurent Dochy, Creative Strategy Director at Lucy.

By integrating news items, like the bombing of the theatre in Mariupol or a train in Kramatorsk, reCaptions brings important information to Russian audiences. According to Dochy, the key is to have new items that would be both emotionally impactful and short enough to fit into the subtitle frame – basically a maximum of two lines. Importantly, they also then add the source of the news, for example The Guardian.

[Disclaimer: The Fix served as an advisor on the reCaptions project covered in this project, helping select salient news items and translating them into Russian]

“We didn’t have much space, so we picked up the most emotional and easy-to-understand news that would shock and wake you up. We wanted to show the truth about events that we know they are lying about in Russia,” Dochy commented.

Next challenge: data and scale

The solution seems to be working, albeit on a small scale. So far, there have been several thousand downloads of the most popular releases. That means that the reCaptions team has to monitor the lists and guess which titles will be popular with Russian audiences (it seems to usually be big ticket American films, like the Marvel series).

However, monitoring data beyond that is tricky. The model allows us to look at the number of downloads, but not the ultimate reach (people tend to watch movies together) or the level of engagement. Solving this challenge will require further creativity. 

Meanwhile, the team is looking to scale the initiative with the help of volunteers to identify movies, sites, translate content and embed in pirated files. 

“We are witnessing a growing scepticism towards the state controlled news reporting in Russia.    It’s the right time to take it public and scale this initiative to increase the impact,” Dochy said.

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