November 2025
Surveil and Deny (Access)
The Future of Russian Censorship: Scanning the Horizons until 2028
RKS Global experts, supported by other Russian and Eurasian digital rights experts, prepared a prognosis for the development of online censorship and surveillance over the next three years and identified potential points of resilience. They also outlined key trends, weak signals, and critical uncertainties that will be crucial in the near future.
Executive summary
By 2028, Russia's information control system may ultimately become institutionalized as a tightly regulated, autarkic framework, resembling Turkmenistan's model. Alternatively, it may begin to collapse under its own weight, depending on the sustainability of the regime, citizens' reaction to the implemented measures, the international agenda, and technical capacity of implementers.
The global shift toward isolationism and a "rightward turn" create favorable conditions for the strengthening of censorship around the world. International law is experiencing a crisis, the erosion of universal norms and the priority of national digital sovereignty are turning control over information from an exception into a new standard of political stability.
Just three years ago, "whitelists" were considered a dystopian scenario. Now, they are becoming part of the new reality, starting as a local experiment and then evolving into a sustainable filtering format. In the future, they may transform from a testing regime into the primary tool of censorship, radically shrinking the space for an independent Internet.
Experts emphasize the growing use of artificial intelligence in public control mechanisms, from automated content moderation to network traffic analysis, biometric data and prediction of “unreliable” behavior. Combined with government databases and video surveillance systems, such technologies may form a new level of preventive censorship where intervention starts even before any expression occurs.
The future of censorship increasingly depends on unpredictable external factors, such as the war in Ukraine, technological breakthroughs, and generational shifts in society. These factors may not only destroy censorship systems but also change control logic.
The global shift toward isolationism and a "rightward turn" create favorable conditions for the strengthening of censorship around the world. International law is experiencing a crisis, the erosion of universal norms and the priority of national digital sovereignty are turning control over information from an exception into a new standard of political stability.
Just three years ago, "whitelists" were considered a dystopian scenario. Now, they are becoming part of the new reality, starting as a local experiment and then evolving into a sustainable filtering format. In the future, they may transform from a testing regime into the primary tool of censorship, radically shrinking the space for an independent Internet.
Experts emphasize the growing use of artificial intelligence in public control mechanisms, from automated content moderation to network traffic analysis, biometric data and prediction of “unreliable” behavior. Combined with government databases and video surveillance systems, such technologies may form a new level of preventive censorship where intervention starts even before any expression occurs.
The future of censorship increasingly depends on unpredictable external factors, such as the war in Ukraine, technological breakthroughs, and generational shifts in society. These factors may not only destroy censorship systems but also change control logic.
Methodology
Forecasts for changes in censorship in Russia for the period 2025-2028 are based on information provided by experts in the field of digital rights and media, lawyers, journalists, and information security specialists.
In the new research, experts explored three areas: technological trends, trends in Russia, and global trends. They searched for weak signals, tipping points, and axes of uncertainty — all of which have the potential to radically affect the future of censorship. The experts identified observable trends and prioritized them according to their importance and probability. This approach enabled them to connect observations from various areas—technology, politics, law, and economics—to the overall picture of possible Russian censorship scenarios until 2028.
In the new research, experts explored three areas: technological trends, trends in Russia, and global trends. They searched for weak signals, tipping points, and axes of uncertainty — all of which have the potential to radically affect the future of censorship. The experts identified observable trends and prioritized them according to their importance and probability. This approach enabled them to connect observations from various areas—technology, politics, law, and economics—to the overall picture of possible Russian censorship scenarios until 2028.