Slashdot Mirror
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."
Maybe the Russian administration can't control the online media, but that sure doesn't stop them from trying.
o r_deletion/Internet_brigades_(2nd_nomination)
I suspect their government-sponsored trolls are also active on Wikipedia, where, besides pushing Russian propaganda, they try to suppress any mention of this phenomenon. Recently, an article on this subject (titled "Internet trolls squads") was voted into deletion, and now the resurrected article (titled "Internet brigades") has again been nominated for deletion by a number of persistent Russian editors.
Read more about the phenomenon here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_brigades
See the discussion on deleting that article here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_f
Bush declared that Putin has a good soul, so there's obviously nothing to be worried about.
This is worrying. I personally feel Russia has been taking steps back as far as civil liberty goes, really I feel that the whole WORLD has been taking steps back.
The internet is being reigned in now - this was possibly the last great refuge for free speech...
Rather worrying.
I was just in Turkey and was able to visit every website I wanted which included newsites that were critical of AKP and other political parties and leaders in Turkey. Also, more importantly, porn sites can be reached without any problems.
If you insult the founder of Turkey -- whose dead and thus not running for election -- then you get into trouble. Usually insulting the current PM - Erdogan - may get you sued by Erdogan but not likely your website is going to be blocked.
China and Turkey are quite different in their levels of censorship. Critical political commentary is very common in the media in Turkey. This is an election year in Turkey too and I don't think you'll see any censorship of political opinion.
Would you have rather had Bush tell the truth (Putin, you're a psychopathic douche bag!) and pissed him off? I, for one, would rather Bush tell him a flattering lie than further strain relations with Russia.
"The man" doesn't learn. Not in the traditional sense. The man can only be usurped. Then there's a new man, and the cycle repeats. This usurping doesn't necessarily have to be violent. Every shift in power in Congress or the Presidency is a mild form of usurping. Even if it's *somewhat* violent, it doesn't have to totally destroy society (e.g., the US civil rights movement). Of course, examples of violent revolution are, unfortunately, all too common, and the "new boss" is often worse than the old boss; but the point is, the boss or "the man" itself doesn't learn, at least I can't think of any examples.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The only "small" difference being that you don't get shot on the street, polonimized, or otherwise rm -rf'd in the US for writing something anti-government or anti-establishment.
Guy, get a sense for reality! I am also doing business in Russia and China and to be honest, on a pure-personal level, I prefer doing business in China especially because I don't get shot down on the street publishing government-critical info - in China they just invalidate your business/media license or block you otherwise, but don't really kill you. Of course, you have the same other problems as well (no rule of law, being cheated, etc) - but you *know* this and these things are not life threatening.
Man, you really should get a sense of reality - maybe you should leave your safe country and visit those other countries and do a reality-check (or, if you are Russian, what I assume, you should leave for a while and check-out what freedemom of speech really means e.g. in US, UK, Switzerland, etc.)
And with respect to the links you posted: They are fully government-controlled/censored, don't tell bullshit here just because people can't check it out because they can't read russian/cyrillic. Licensed by Ministry of Press is Newspeak for "fully controlled and censored my MoP".