The Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) has conducted a survey on the policies of music streaming platforms that publish some songs in edited versions and impose age restrictions on certain content. Forty-four percent of respondents said they had noticed songs being ‘edited’, while 36% said they had not. VCIOM deemed it necessary to present a separate table for this question, combining the 36% who had not noticed any editing with respondents who do not listen to music at all and those who were unsure how to answer. As a result, a majority (56%) were classified as not paying attention to changes made to songs on music platforms. The purpose of this rather curious rearrangement of the figures is open to interpretation. Presumably, it is intended to emphasise society’s indifference to editing, if not outright censorship.
Among those who had noticed songs being edited, 52% said they had tried to find the original, unaltered versions, while 48% had not. According to 64% of respondents, the edits mainly affected references to smoking, drugs and alcohol. Fifty-nine percent believed that profanity had been removed from songs. Other responses were significantly less common, ranging from 21% for political statements and below. VCIOM also presented respondents with a list of themes they might have encountered in songs. These included the promotion of violence, aggression, disregard for family values, the sexualisation of people, the romanticisation of crime, the romanticisation of death and obscene language. Notably, 23% of respondents aged 18 to 24 said they had encountered none of these in music content. Among those aged 25 to 34, the figure was 19%
People, of course, listen to different kinds of music. Still, it is difficult to believe that so many young people have never come across profanity in song lyrics, for example. It is more likely that this reflects respondents’ attitudes toward the wording of the questions. A person may well have heard songs containing profanity, smoking, violence, aggression, sex and death, yet disagree with describing such content as propaganda or indoctrination. Such respondents therefore answer ‘no’, and this position appears to be more common among younger people than among older generations.
By comparison, only 8% of respondents aged 18 to 24 believe that platforms should restrict the promotion of content with potentially ‘negative influence’. Among those aged 45 to 59, the figure rises to 33%, while in the oldest age group it reaches 39%. Between 28% and 29% of young respondents oppose any restrictions whatsoever. Twenty-one percent of the youngest group agree that song lyrics should conform to social and moral norms, while 72% believe that song content should be free from restrictions. Among older generations, support for moral censorship ranges from 67% to 78%.
Music streaming platforms are used primarily by young people, yet the rules governing them are imposed by older generations, who seek to supplement parental upbringing with broader social norms, prohibitions and even punishments. The VCIOM survey illustrates this clearly across several tables. It is young people who notice that words are removed from songs and that access to certain tracks is restricted. They then have little difficulty finding the original versions and listening to precisely the content from which older generations sought to shield them. Moreover, young people often do not believe that the content of songs can influence their behaviour. The notion of ‘negative influence’ is an assumption that has been elevated into an unquestioned axiom in order to justify supervision and punishment. Music and art work differently: they reflect people’s mood and often help them cope with negative thoughts rather than provoking harmful behaviour.
Other countries have already followed the path of restrictions. In the United States during the 1980s and 1990s, music albums were sold with ‘Parental Advisory: Explicit Content’ labels. For rock, heavy metal and rap, these stickers became an additional marketing tool: young listeners were all the more eager to hear what the ever-serious adults warned them against.
