Kremlin Seeks to Control Online Media

reporter writes "According to a disturbing report just published by Bloomberg, 'As the Kremlin gears up for the election of Putin's successor next March, Soviet-style controls are being extended to online news after a presidential decree last month set up a new agency to supervise both mass media and the Web.' However, unless the Kremlin pursues Chinese-style/Turkish-style blocking of the Internet-Protocol addresses of web sites like 'The Economist', even the Kremlin cannot control the online media. If Putin pulled the plug on an anti-Putin web site inside Russia, the anti-Putin web site could simply be migrated offshore to a server in, say, the United States."

Comments

Re:pure irony

[shutdown -p now]

To be fair, I can criticize Putin here in Russia just fine as well. In private speech and on the 'Net, certainly. It's when the criticism gets to mass media the government starts acting. No jail times and the like, it might just happen that e.g. the place you were supposed to hold your public speech at is suddenly closed for inspection due to "fire code violations" or "non-compliant sanitary condition" (happened with a few more prominent opposition leaders recently), or the newspaper office gets a visit from tax inspection. They do begin to assert control over the 'Net as well now, though, mostly because it's the last bastion where the opposition still has a strong presence. But it's all nowhere near China, for example.