Conde Nast is entitled to do what it wants with the material it has printed, so the story about how the company restricted the distribution of one of the articles it published in one of its magazines is not a case of “censorship” (although I will look forward to reading what the fearless freedom-fighters at Conde Nast-owned Vanity Fair will have to say about it).

Here, via RFE, are some of the details (extract follows):

NEW YORK — The decision by a major U.S. publisher to quash the publication of a controversial article in the Russian edition of one its magazines has sparked a lively debate in the United States about self-censorship and freedom of expression.
The article in question is “Vladimir Putin’s Dark Rise To Power,” a lengthy piece that appears in the current U.S. issue of “GQ.” Written by veteran investigative reporter Scott Anderson, the article challenges the official Moscow line about a series of bombings that killed hundreds of people in Russia in 1999.
Anderson wrote his article relying mostly on the account of Mikhail Trepashkin, a former senior Russian intelligence officer who investigated the bombings. Trepashkin points out a number of inconsistencies in the case and suggests a possible link between the bombings and those structures in Russia that brought Putin to power, first as prime minister, then as president.
The subject has long been taboo for Russian journalists. But now it appears that the subject is also a no-no for the publisher Conde Nast, whose management, according to a report by National Public Radio issued a strict order prohibiting the reprint of the article in any of its magazines published in Russia or elsewhere. It also reportedly ordered that the article not be posted on the “GQ” website in the United States.

The article in question can be seen on Gawker. The whole story surrounding the connections between Putin’s rise and a series of apartment bombings remains fascinating — and highly disturbing. For those interested in this topic, the “case for the prosecution” is set out in two books by historian Yuri Felshtinsky (an interview I had with him was published in NR in December 2007), Blowing up Russia (co-written with the murdered Alexander Litvinenko) and, in passing, in the more recent The Corporation (co-written with Vladimir Pribylovsky).