Countering Authoritarian Censorship via Grassroots Communication Campaigns: Evidence from an Experimental Mega-Study in Wartime Russia

In response to Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, citizen-led communication campaigns leveraged modern information technology to transmit millions of messages providing uncensored information to Russians via emails, texts, social media apps, and website commentary. Yet it remains unclear to what extent such initiatives can penetrate authoritarian censorship and propaganda, and which types of messaging are most likely to succeed. To investigate, we partnered with Mail2Ru, a prominent citizen-led grassroots initiative, to conduct two pre-registered field experiments on the effectiveness of citizen-to-citizen email communication. For Study 1, a large-scale “mega-study,” we invited behavioral science experts to design theoretically informed persuasive messages encouraging Russians to watch an uncensored video about the invasion. Approximately 260,000 email recipients were randomly assigned one of eleven treatments or two control conditions. Study 1 showed that information technology’s scalability enables even poorly designed messages to engage large audiences, but also that most expert-designed messages failed to outperform controls. Our top-performing intervention, however, nearly doubled engagement with the video. Study 2 successfully replicated the benefits of our top-performing intervention six months later, confirming its robustness. Study 3 probed mechanisms underlying our field experiment results, producing initial evidence that in the challenging context of censorship and repression, strategies emphasizing receptiveness and respectful engagement with opposing perspectives might be most effective. Together, these findings offer evidence-based guidance for citizen-led efforts to counter authoritarian propaganda.