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
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.