Eksmo-AST Withholds Dozens of Books Over Censorship
Publishing group 'Eksmo-AST' refused to publish dozens of books that failed to pass checks for compliance with Russian legislation.
Consensus
- Eksmo-AST refused to publish several dozen books that did not pass legal compliance checks.
- The company conducted around 20,000 internal AI-based reviews of books.
- The company also ordered approximately 600 external reviews.
- The decision to withhold books was influenced by unclear legal criteria and fear of personal liability for editors.
- The publisher tightened internal regulations after criminal cases against employees of other publishing houses.
- Authors or foreign rights holders sometimes refused to make required changes.
- Some books could not be revised due to practical or legal reasons.
- The company's internal checks include criteria such as references to 'non-traditional relationships' and drug propaganda.
- The publisher has dismissed employees who refused to comply with new censorship rules.
Points of divergence
- The company's internal regulations were significantly tightened after the cases involving Popcorn Books and Individuum. — novaya_eu
- The president of Eksmo-AST stated he does not have exact statistics on how many books were rejected. — tg_agentstvonews
- The company's internal checks are based on ten criteria, including 'non-traditional relationships' and 'drug propaganda'. — novaya_eu
- The company checks books for more than ten signs, including extremism, foreign agents, LGBT, pedophilia, and army discredit, and found violations in medical literature, biology textbooks, images, and biographies. — tg_agentstvonews
Coverage (2 sources)
- «Exmo-Ast» did not publish dozens of books due to censorship — Новая газета Европа
- Head of 'Eksmo-AST' spoke about dozens of books not published due to new restrictions — Агентство. Новости