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The Kremlin Tightens Its Grip on the Internet
reporter writes "According to a report just published by "The Washington Post", the percentage of Russian adults having access to the Internet has risen from 8% in 2002 to 25% in 2007. This growth has attracted the attention of the Kremlin. Its allies are creating pro-Kremlin web sites and are purchasing web sites known for high-quality independent journalism. Pro-Kremlin bloggers have used their skills to bury news about anti-Kremlin demonstrations: at Russian news portals, web links to news about pro-Kremlin rallies consistently rank higher than web links to news about anti-Kremlin demonstrations.
The most disturbing development is that the Kremlin intends to develop a Russian Internet which is separate from the global Internet. Russian officials are studying the techniques that the Chinese use to censor the Internet."
Seriously. I got a "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."
Circumcision is child abuse.
The Chinese have the Great Firewall of China, what will the Russkies have? Can't call it the Berlin Firewall. I guess they'll have to go with some kind of play on the Iron Curtain, which won't sound as cool.
Though if they're really attached to that Berlin Firewall name, I suppose they could make it relevant again by rolling some tanks into eastern Germany...
Putin, and more importantly, the team of ex-KGB people around him, will of course seek to control the Internet in Russia.
All the other media, such as newpapers and TV, are firmly pro-Kremlin. Independant journalists are imprisoned or assasinated by - of course - nameless 'enemies of the state'.
It's a shame that the promise of democracy there turned out to be yet another 'false dawn'.
Europe will do nothing, since the bear's paw is firmly on their throat, i.e. the oil and gas supply...
Next up, Google et al 'voluntary censorship'?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism
Peace sells, but who's buying?
In a world where information is power, governments who don't actually represent their people will always try to control the knowledge that their people have access to, lest they loose their grip on them.
~ All comments automatically moderated -1 since 2004 ~
In soviet Russia... the Internet browses you!!
I couldn't help it... sorry.
Of people's attempts to silence others. After all, if we weren't, we'd have to go after a hell of a lot of muslims urgently. And they do a lot more silencing than even the kremlin.
Russian girls don't look half as good when they actually arrive, and there is generally no returns policy.
Pro-Kremlin bloggers have used their skills to bury news about anti-Kremlin demonstrations: at Russian news portals, web links to news about pro-Kremlin rallies consistently rank higher than web links to news about anti-Kremlin demonstrations.
So, the Russians are adopting the tactics of the Bush administration. It's a sad day for Russia.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I would say its a fair deal.
Afterall, you aren't the hunky football pro you made out either.
liqbase
After 10 years of research, investigators have discovered that governments are, in fact, manipulative.
So, does this mean that kremvax will be brought back online?
It seems here that they intend to airgap their country from the rest of the world. Obviously someone could run across the border to bring DVDs, or maybe hack the phones to call an international ISP, but this will certainly make things difficult.
_____
Thank you.
If you are, you haven't been paying attention. All independent TV stations have been closed, one way or the other, in Russia. The same is true for newspapers, with few exceptions. And the journalists brave enough to speak up have dire times looking ahead. Remember Anna Politkovskaya?
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Fox is a privately owned broadcaster...
Says it all really.
Deleted
In Soviet Russia, the government controls you.
No, wait...
...its the Russian mafia network.
So even if the kremlin managed to create their own country internet there would still be the russian mafias world wide internet.
The most disturbing development is that the Kremlin intends to develop a Russian Internet which is separate from the global Internet.
Mr. Putin, by all means, do so, as it would benefit most people here in the EU, and I'm sure most people in the US too. Please do separate your "internet" from the internet. The day you do, there will be 99% less phishing sites on the net.
Big thanks go to Mr Bush who looked into the eyes of Mr Putin and did not see the murderer in them: what this article describes is the least of the crimes made by Kremlin, it's like accusing Hitler (even though he is not at the same scale, yet) of suppressing mass media where as much graver crimes have been committed.
A lot of people would probably object to using Hitler as direct comparison to Putin. But there is simply no other close analogy - if you read carefully book about the life in the Third Reich before the WW2 and compare it to what happens in Russia in the last few years you will find a lot of disturbing parallels - I sure hope I am wrong and that Putin will never reach the level of Hitler, but then again better be mistaken in this then right.
Good people of the US - I know you've got plenty of problems on your hands, but ignore raise of Russian national socialism at your peril - it is you who Putin marks as the enemy that he uses to unify the nation, nothing good will come out of it, Putin needs to be stopped and there is simply no other nation in the world who would dare to draw a line in the sand but you - the Americans. I don't know who the heck you will elect as President, but I hope he won't be as dumb as Bush who is responsible for allowing Putin and thus KGB take over Russia.
In Soviet Russia, the Internet reads YOU!
The data center that I work for has political site on one of it's boxes. We actually received an abuse report, by some kind of Russian internet team, saying that the material was illegal because it interfered with Russian election laws. I'm not sure what ever happened to the incident, but I did find that slightly unnerving.
Good thing he says he's pals with Bush. Or is that because of the family links to the CIA? All Putin's doing is what he's good at. Doing what Cisco and Yahoo taught China to do, and adding a helping of 20th century Russian self-hatred and sado-control. It's too bad really, all the guy's imagination and efforts are completely warped into a useless direction that will mean nothing in the future. Making pro-Kremlin sites is okay, I was going to say he should make pro-space and pro-biotech engineering sites but on the other hand with his type of mind they will all be warped to nuclear missile and biowarfare. Good way to throw a country's future in the trashcan!
You could very well replace the name "Russia" in the article with "United States" and I don't think it would surprise most here. I guess the pro-kremlin bloggers would then be Fox News?
A couple of things.
Russia is not so simple. First, Putin is enormously popular in Russia. He has put food in the belly of the Russian people, their standards of living are higher, and so on. In the mind of the average Russian, over there, someone supporting the likes of a pure democracy movement are the crooks and cronies from the Yeltsin era. Those crooks and cronies, in turn, are the very former communist leaders that they rebelled against to begin with!
Secondly, yes, there is Fox News and they tend to feature columnists that are sympathetic to the right wing of American politics. Guess what, that's half the country dude. The only reason Republicans are in trouble now, well, there are a lot, is because of the skyrocketing cost of energy and the growing realization that the Republicans in Washington aren't so Republican after all. If you think the likes of Hannity give Bush a blank check, you'd be dead wrong. Hannity -routinely- condemns Bush on immigration and was one of the key players to stop the Bush immigration reform bill dead in its tracks. Similarly, just wait until Bush flip flops on the ridiculous law of the sea treaty or tries to enact some sort of a carbon tax. He'd be dead meat.
Finally, the key difference between the USA and other places around the world that the left is so fond of comparing us too, is that, the left wing is allowed to spout its own opinions. If MoveOn was in Russia or China, they most certainly not exist. But then, neither would the NRA.
This is my sig.
This is short sighted on the part of Russia. Russia has a brain drain problem. Silicon Valley is awash in bright Russian immigrant software developers who love the opportunities and freedoms they are getting. This increased censorship and eroding of basic rights back home in Russia will only increase that trend and leave Russia holding the bag with the beaten down and uninspired population that will remain.
Didn't they get like 70% in the elections? Which would mean that they do represent their people.
Deleted
"Russian officials are studying the techniques that the Chinese use to censor the Internet.""
It doesn't hurt that Chinese telecom ZTE is moving product into Russia as fast as possible, either.
The thing that I never understood, defense hawks are not really for a strong defense, a cost-effective way of protecting our home soil. Defense hawks are about big contracts and big paychecks. They'd rather pay a billion bucks for the platinum-plated solid gold whiz-bang wonderweapon but don't want to spare a nickel for the soldiers who man them.
So much of the Cold War was snake-oil salesmen from the defense industry peddling their wares and enriching themselves and the generals while also increasing the likelihood that these weapons would be used in a shooting war.
What's the easiest way to cut down a mighty oak tree? When you can pinch the life out of it between two fingers. In other words, just after it's sprouted. But we seem to like the idea of planting the tree in the first place, letting it get plenty of sun and rain, wait until it's grown into an imposing presence, then we get to whip out the chainsaws and dynamite. If Shel Silverstein ever wrote about this, he'd have to call it "the Stupid Tree."
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
As Plato said, bad propaganda conditions your people to do stupid things, and they don't have time to figure it out. I'd do the same thing, but I give Russia few chances of success, given how elusive self-governance has been for them since they overthrew their Nordid leaders and replaced them with fields of peasant Slavs.
Anti-Globalism
And the desire to "censor the Internet" is not limited to Russia and China. In every country, you can find people who want to control the movement of information online.
You can't control what people use their PCs for, or what they send over their own private networks. But you can tightly control the information moving over the public network. I think that this could be done by requiring all packets to be digitally signed by the originator. Routers at your ISP and on the backbone would reject packets lacking a valid signature. As part of the requirements for getting a valid signing key, every user can be forced to run only approved software on their PC, which would make it difficult to use any application that lacked Government approval. So you can opt out, but if you do, you lose your network access.
Of course, this scheme destroys anonymity online, and allows the authority to kick you offline at any time by revoking your keys. If the US were the bastion of freedom and democracy that it claims to be, this would not be a problem, because Russia and China couldn't implement an effective scheme without also losing the ability to communicate with the US and Europe. However, the US is well positioned to lead the way, with software and hardware companies bending over backwards to implement the necessary "trusted computing" technology, media giants lobbying against "intellectual property theft", and telecom corporations offering no resistance to illegal Government activities. We have already seen how "peer to peer" poses a "threat to National Security"... well, forcing a licensing scheme on all Internet users would be one way to eliminate the threat while still permitting "peer to peer" for future legal applications such as distributing World of Questcrack patches.
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/07/130258 Democracy Now!
August 7th, 2007
Freedom Next Time: Filmmaker & Journalist John Pilger on Propaganda, the Press, Censorship and Resisting the American Empire
John Pilger: One of my favorite stories about the Cold War concerns a group of Russian journalists who were touring the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by the host for their impressions. "I have to tell you," said the spokesman, "that we were astonished to find after reading all the newspapers and watching TV day after day that all the opinions on all the vital issues are the same. To get that result in our country we send journalists to the gulag. We even tear out their fingernails. Here you don't have to do any of that. What is the secret?"
Kent Brockman: "Also in the news today, a team of researchers has found that the amount of email spam has increased over 300% since the early part of this decade. Scientists are still searching for the cause of this increase."
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
nothing... CNN thinks the following US news are enough:
...so in the US anti-bush news are just anti-patriotic / anti-american... the only difference between the Russian news control is that Putin started a bit earlier than Bush.
* Entire school system shuts for superbug scrub
* Train kills 5-year-old boy
* Genarlow Wilson freed | 'We want him home' Video
* Indian tribes expel members
* Mobile home dwellers ride out fire, wait for help
* Fatal fetus theft leads to death sentence
* Mob considered whacking Guiliani Video
* Feds: Look out for shoe-bombers
* Commander loses job amid nuclear sub probe
> Pro-Kremlin bloggers have used their skills to bury news about anti-Kremlin demonstrations:
ahhh, if some CNN wievers want to learn about recent anti-bush demonstrations, tune into BBC.
Of people's attempts to silence others.
If we do not defend the rights of others, we will soon have none ourselves. People without freedom can be expended at will by their leaders to remove your own freedom. It is good to condem oppression wherever you see it. Trade, laws, war and peace must follow morals. If you can change your morals to accommodate other things, you have no morals.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
If Bush were censoring anything on the internet, you retards wouldn't be posting this now. Pull your head out of your ass.
That's good advice for individuals but bad for society, and you are woefully unaware of your fading rights. There are 750,000 proscribed people in the US who have been labled "terrorist" without trial. They will be kept from traveling, employment and other things vital to their well being. Economic assassination is almost as effective as the other kind. Mass roundups that follow the next "Perl Harbor" will find an economically devastated opposition. Yes, you too can be labled a criminal for saying the wrong things. To avoid the end game, we must point it out loudly and convince people to stand up for themselves and others. Tyranny melts in the face of unified opposition, which is how the Soviet Union died.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
During the 50's, 60's, and 70's, America, and then the whole of the free world lead the planet. The reason is that we had a capitalism helping us move things alone. In particular, we developed our resources VERY quickly. Neither China nor USSR was not able to do that, because they were totalitarian states combined with command economics. Now, Russia is heading to what China is, but the difference is that China has the lead in manufacturing and Russia now has the resources, all of which America was the leader in before. The point being unless the free world quickly develops alternative and nuclear energy, we are probably going to be in the same place that we were in before, only with us on the losing end. The truth is that totalitarian govs. are VERY efficient (do not like the result? shoot it). It was the command economy that was not. If we have a low cost energy again, then the free world can expand rapidly into automated manufacturing.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hitler was popular in Germany.
What kind of a point are you trying to make here? That there is no news to be found on anti-Bush demonstrations because there isn't any thrown in your face on CNN?
CNN isn't the only game in town you know. You might try FoxNews or maybe MSNBC.
Still not anti-Bush enough for you? Try Daily Kos or the Democratic Underground or the Huffington Post. Mayhap you'll mosey on over to Prison Planet. Might find things a bit more to your liking at some of these places.
One more thing about CNN...
Try looking below those links at CNN and noticing the more U.S. stories link that leads to ten pages of links to the more recent US stories that have been covered. There is actually more news regarding the U.S. to be found on CNN than you'd like to lead us to believe.
Then there are also sections for: Politics, Business, War and Conflict, Armed Forces, Political Policy, World Politics, Financial Markets, Terrorism, U.S. Armed Forces, Culture and Lifestyle.
There's actually lots of news to be had on CNN if you're not too lazy to look for it after being disgusted with the lack of coverage of anti-Bush demonstrations.
The most disturbing development is that the Kremlin intends to develop a Russian Internet which is separate from the global Internet
It's worth noting that a good bit of the spam and plain criminal activity on the internet comes out of Russia--the Storm botnet is largely thought to be owned and operated by the Russian mafia. The RIAA would be happy to have mp3.com inaccessible from Western markets.
A segregation of the internet into World portions and Russian portions might have a short-term benefit as this stuff is firewalled away. Of course, the long term cost of the those ciitzens not having access to outside sources of information makes the cure worse than the disease.
--
$tar -xvf
I can assure you that this:
Russia is not so simple. First, Putin is enormously popular in Russia.
is the result of brainwashing that would make soviet leaders envious. Polls consistently show that people a)strongly dislike just about anything government(really, Putin) does b)love Putin
b) is the result of brainwashing. If Putin decides that the internet is a threat to him (=enough people can get news via the internet instead of tv) he'll do whatever it takes to control the internet (including cutting off Russian internet from the rest of the world, if needed)
China, Iran, we already know what kind of cultures these countries have. Why does anyone get surprised when Italy or Russia goes for censorship ? Italy is a country that rich media bosses can rule with much scandal, as they please. Russia is a country in which whoever gets too successful in criticizing the government gets killed in a car bomb. Recently russian police have beaten Gary Kasparov in an anti-kremlin demonstration.
all countries act as per their cultures towards internet.
Read radical news here
Like Faux News, and Limburger - come on, how many SELF-DESCRIBED liberals or leftists are there in the US media, or on the big, corporate websites (or, say, federal gov't sites, like say FEMA)?
Eight or nine years ago, a columnist in the Chicago Trib counted just columnists, and in papers with overt agendas (such as Mother Jones, or the Wall Street Journal), and foudn something like 57 right-wingers, half a dozen or so "moderates', and less than that of liberals (and Molly Ivins is now gone).
So why *shouldn't* the Kremlin do what the neofascist, pardon "neocon" media here have done?
mark "and show me ONE leftist with the same coverage as extreme
right-wing Kato Inst."
The "Washington Post" recently published a chilling story about "police psychiatry" in Russia. Powerful thugs in the government (including the police) and in commercial businesses bribe judges and doctors to declare that a mentally healthy person is mentally incompetent. Then, the "justice" (in a very loose sense of the word) system will imprison the victim in a mental institution. There, the doctors proceed to "treat" the victim with beatings and injections of psychotic substances.
The article by the "Washington Post" mentions that Larissa Arap, a human-rights activist, was one such victim. She had written a damning article about the horrible state of psychiatric wards in Russia. In response, psychiatrists and judges -- under orders from the Kremlin -- imprisoned her in a psychiatric ward. She was subjected to 6 weeks of beatings and injections with an unknown psychotic substance. After numerous letters pleading for her life from Gary Kasparov and other human-rights activits, the Kremlin finally released her.
What is most disturbing about police psychiatry is that it is practiced not only by the Kremlin. This "tool" is also used by ordinary Russians who want to rid themselves of people whom they dislike.
Slashdot should create a new topic category for Russia. It deserves its own topic category for story submissions; the horrors in today's Russia should be an active topic of discussion (condemnation?) for any Westerner who has an iota of compassion. This article by the "Washington Post" should scare any Westerner.
Hi, everybody. I live in Russia, and i must say, that Washington Post knows nothing about situation in our country. There is no problem in publishing any information you want. If it's not loyal to the goverment - you may use right hosting. There is no Great Firewall and we wouldn't have it anyway, cause we joined global network without help of the goverment. Most of people don't watch TV and don't read newspapers. All the politics and games behind it no longer interesting for educated people. So called journalists and bloggers sometimes forget about Occam's razor and laws of logic. Sometimes it's accidental, sometimes not. But usually it's all about trying to make our society unstable. They'll write anything, just to do it. If you call it democracy - please leave it for U.S., we don't need it.
Couple of words of Internet landscape in Russia. As many of you know, Livejournal is the service of choice for most of Russian bloggers and, most importantly, the only service that is used for the political discourse. Other services like number #2 in ratings, Liveinternet.ru populated by pop-music fans and all kinds of juvenile nonsense.
On the contrary, there are many political blogs among top bloggers at the cyrillic sector of Livejournal. It interesting that the most dominant and most vocal part of political blogs are not those that advocate Western style democracy and human rights, but on the contrary are criticizing Putin from extremely right-wing position.
I am looking at blogs.yandex.ru, 5 most cited blog entries, and among number 2 (rus) is defending arrested leader of "Red blitzkrieg" by the blogger well known for his sympathies for all things Soviet.
number 3 (rus) is also on the same subject by the relatively well known lady journalist of the similar political views.
The highest ranking blog among the official politicians (#22 in the all-list) belongs to a politician who was in political leadership of Latvia at the time of breakup from the former Soviet Union and spent a lot of time undermining efforts of Latvians to gain independence. Right wing.
Blogger number 19 is a Nazi sympathizer with Russian pseudo-pagan twist.
The lefties are presented much less among top bloggers.
I am saying this because among quite diverse opposition to Putin right-wingers opposing Western style democracy and human-rights issues are dominating. If they would come to power, the situation would be even worse than at Putin's time from the Western point of view.
In the West Putin's seems like an autocrat, anti-democrat, but to THAT opposition he is a Western poodle. The most viable alternative to Putin at the hypothetical condition of free election (free from government manipulation as well as foreign financial and all other kinds of support to the "liberal" opposition) would be not much famed recently chessmaster, but people like Rogozin (Russian equivalent of Le Pen or Heider).
This might be irrelevant to the topic of censorship, but it is quite relevant to Russians.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
Bloggers actually think they have the least bit of influence on the political landscape. Especially this one from the article, in such strong words "it forces Putin's allies to respond to criticism rather than simply ignore it." Right.
It is so sad to see Russia turn in this direction. My father is Russian and I have spent much time there. I did not believe him when he said that Russia will turn back to Soviet style country after Putin was elected. Now this seems to have come true.
If you are a fan of 1984, do watch this video by the NYTimes: The Putin Generation
This is SO much like the book. Distorting reality (Stalin being a great leader), rewriting history (Kasparov being US Citizen), hate week (creating Hate against US). Completely surreal. Would not want to live in a place like that. Makes me very sad, because Russia is such a beautiful place and most everyday people are so warm.
She is a member of the Rodina block, which was a political party created by the Kremlin and which was eventually merged into a larger party called "Just Russia". The leader of the Rodina block has advocated restricting the operation of human-rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Russa.
Narochnitskaya herself has opposed the Orange Revolution (a.k.a. the democratization movement) in the Ukraine.
Worst of all, the Rodina party has fueled racist xenophobic violence in Russia. According to a report in 2004 by the "The Globe and Mail", "According to official estimates, 20,000 people in Moscow alone now belong to skinhead organizations or other extremist groups, a 30-per-cent increase from five years ago. Among their favourite targets are Jews -- dozens of street signs last year were painted with swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti -- and those from the Caucasus region on Russia's southern flank, a historic hatred that has grown deeper through a decade of bloody war in the breakaway republic of Chechnya."
The report further states that when an African student sought help from the Russian police to protect him from violent skinheads, a Russian police officer said, "Why are you here, Mr. Nigger? We don't have any bananas here."
Well, I did as the other replier to your post suggested and looked through a few days worth of US stories. A ton of stuff about the california fires and nothing about any anti-war protests. I must admit that I suspected this would not be a productive use of my time.
The original poster dropped a link from the BBC. They clearly have other news sources.
In Europe, if you examine the holocaust you receive prison time (Ernst Zundel). Even in the US, censorship is becoming America's favorite past-time. The US gov't (and their corporate friends), already detain protesters, ban books like "America Deceived" from Amazon and Wikipedia, shut down Imus and fire 21-year tenured, BYU physics professor Steven Jones because he proved explosives, thermite in particular, took down the WTC buildings. Free Speech forever (especially for the internet).
Last link (before Google Books caves to pressure and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)
hmmm... "Pro-Kremlin bloggers" is not Kremlin itself.
And if they create a Russian internet, then there will be ways to access the global internet by one way or another.
Yawnnnnnn to this article.
It is not media freedom that's important. Rather it is important how politically aware and educated the populace is. Speak to any Russian. They are aware of the limitations of their own system, who is in control, and who to excercise a strong case of cynicism over. Democracy can only exist under such circumstances. Conversely, speak to ordinary Americans. On average, the are the most ignorant brainwashed, and uninformed people that I have ever encountered. Press freedom is a part of that. Fox News / CNN are probably the foremost progaganda agencies on the face of this planet. People need education and the ability to think critically, and not 'just believe' like the members of a religious cult (eg. a 'creationist') do.
I wouldn't loose any sleep over the actions of Putin in Russia. Although some of his methods may not be the most democratic, he is actually benefiting the prosperity of the Russian people, unlike the current US dictatorship. I am tired of hearing the complaints of Americans about other countries, when the should show some introspection and look inwards at the rotten core of their own corrosive right wing alliance between military contractors, oil companies, corporations, and religious fundementalists.
The United States is one of the few countries that I know of where the state can now legally 'vanish' people to military tribunials and execution without any judicial accountability. Is Russia this bad? I think not.
There's already a myriad of KGB lurkers on forums where the Russian intelligentsia tends to congregate, spreading FUD about emigration. Stuff like: * People who emigrated from Russia are idiots/unpatriotic/actually want to go back. * It's awesome in Russia compared to America. America sucks. Why do you not go back, dude? (Perhaps it does, but Russia sucks even more.) I'm guessing it has some effectiveness in getting people to reconsider emigrating, since they're bothering with it.
With your 'examples' one could consider the government laws making murder illegal to be authoritarian. Me thinks you think too highly of the 'free market'.
Blar.
They helped the Chinese censor their internet. Maybe they could make a bunch of money from Russia. After all, as they said last time: "If we don't do it, someone else will."
I guess "no evil" has a pretty flexible definition.
Laws limiting what people can do with their own lives and property are not in the same class as laws limiting what people can do with others' lives and property against the others' will. You may reasonably think both kinds of laws are necessary, but if you want to convince others of that view, then pretending a distinction doesn't exist is disingenuous.
They have techniques? I thought they just put firewalls up.
please... let me sleep... a little more... yay, no longer annonmyous coward.
Sounds exactly like the old Soviet days. Seriously, all that's missing is for the government to rename all those industries it nationalized into subdepartments of the ministry of the interior (or whatever the proper translation is), and the police to be put back into secret, ultra-effective mode. And the real bitch of it is that most Russians will probably be happy that the government is doing this because, hey, under the old regime there was at least food on the table, and the streets were safe.
In Soviet Russia...no, I can't joke about this. In Soviet Russia, nothing ever really changes.
Unlike the body of the article it looks rather optimistic to me.
This is not an uncommon theme in the US to the point where the practice was ridiculed on stage (and subsequent film) in the 1940's and 50s. Ever seen the movie Harvey?
As for torture in prisons, maybe they're using the Bush administration definition of what is torture and what is not.
Need Mercedes parts ?
With your 'examples' one could consider the government laws making murder illegal to be authoritarian. Me thinks you think too highly of the 'free market'.
Spoken like a true religious fanatic.
This is my sig.
After all the US wrote the book & if they can teach the Chinese, the Russians should be a snap.
Do you google? Do you think you know what's going on? They bought youtube so they can help you see even better. Get ready for 2008. The new programming gets deployed and will really change what you see/think.
Hmm.. Better go watch "They Live" a couple more times.
Believe it.
Yeah, cuz I need more spam from them than I'm already getting...
The Schwartz space ain't from Spaceballs.
And here I thought right-of-center people were disgusted by CNN, re: "communist news network".
Especially since the Europeans invented the Web.
I saw three "In Soviet Russia.." comments to this story. One modded "funny", another one "insightful" and yet another "troll". They all basically say "the internet reads/browses/controls you". Now, if some moderators are smoking stuff, I would like some it too.
Wrong, Europe is not under the bear. In fact what you don't seem to realize is that Europe's relationship with Russia is more complex. As for energy policy one European country, Norway, is the world's third largest exporter of oil and gas. In the south North-African countries are just beginning to supply Europe. But we are keeping tabs on how Russia behaves, not giving into their tantrum politics (Ukraine). EU-Russia relationship And Europe is doing plenty to encourage development of democratic institutions and free press in Russia. But fighting a tyrant like Putin, his friends and KGB troops is not exactly easy. I don't see a massive US campaign helping the oppressed Russian journalists?! At least in Europe we are aiding the democratic Russian forces in the European Court of Justice. Oh, and where's your comment on US censorship?
Sorry folks, but Putin's supposed high popularity and his ability to raise the standard of living has everything to do with oil and his repatriation of natural resources back to the state economy (Google "Yukos"). He did this on the back of the hard capitalistic work performed after the Russian revolution in Yeltsin's era. Perhaps the Russians were not patient enough to wait for the changes to take hold
Any economy will see a dramatic, but fleeting, boost to their economy after nationalizing companies (esp when commodity prices have more than tripled). But these gains will slowly decline as the state has no ability to reinvest in its industry -- it's too busy placating the people. Eventually, this is a recipe for disaster (for a case study, look at Mexico's oil story -- Venezuela is now marching down the same path). This is basic economics.
No one knows when, but problems are inevitable.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
There always WAS that way...
This was available since ALWAYS, unfortunately.
Since the collapse of soviet union corruption has spread to even judges. You couldn't even get a killer to be put into jail, having 4 eyewitnesses testifying against the killer. Because the judge was bribed. That is to what extent corruption has spread during the Yeltsin's years of "freedom".
First, if you are claiming the US government controls the US media the way the Russian government controls the Russian government just because there are other things going on other than a bunch of people walking around with signs and thinking they are making a difference in the world, you are an idiot.
Second, Fox News currently (as of 5:32 PM, EST) has this as their top story. So unless you want to concede that Fox is the most independent news outlet while CNN is a Bush lapdog, I'd rethink your argument...
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
And to be honest, I am hoping that they remain a republic. But the problem is that they are heading in the same direction as before. A group of strong men have taken over and the general public is happy. The real problem may be that Russia will maintain the election, but as Stalin said, it is those that count the votes that are in control. Sadly, in many ways, it is the exact same issue in America.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
...Hmm... No sane person would publish anti-Kremlin articles, so they're obviously psychotic, and therefore, need to be treated :-/
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
and the scumbags around here supported that governments laws and things like allofmp3.com
What a bunch of spineless cowards around here
Sorry, but the only "Russian Hotties" posting from the New Russian Internet aren't the blonde, buxom beauties convieniently delivered to your home; they're a bit more... manly.
We call them "good ideas."
The US already has a similar concept, but it involves naming people "enemy combatants."
i worked for russian new agency, supposedly independent.
you know what? they don't have censorship. no, really.
at least they don't call it censorship, they call it "stop list". it's a message in a shared imap folder that all news editors read. it describes, in plain and simple language, what people, companies or other entities should not be covered. for some it lists subjects that should not be covered, or the other way around - literally, "X: only positive, don't mention Y" etc. people, companies, ministries... some are just competitors, but there were plenty of what essentially is political censorship - all oposition parties were in this stop list.
this was 2 years ago. i've since emigrated, partly because i don't expect situation to improve anytime soon. it's really sad.
Get a grip people. The article is from the Washington Post - they have a terrible reputation for the quality of their overseas coverage, connected to the long-term reduction in journalistic resources in overseas bureaus - like Moscow.
If you want to read news from Moscow, track Bloomberg or Reuters instead, both of which actually have substantial teams on the ground there. Or even better - read the excellent English language editions of independent Moscow newspapers like Kommersant http://www.kommersant.com/. You don't need the Washington Post hawkish journos mangling the facts for you on Russia.
The Internet is almost completely unfettered in Russia and quite simply there is little indication that that is going to change in the future. The WashPost article is a beat-up and a joke.
its true, bush still has his finger on the media.. its complete at udder bullshit.. impeach this tyrant
is someone who lived in turkey for the last 30 years, and saw what iran, sscb can do to whatever they are involved in. afterwards, saw that what kind of a government, and even people, russians have become after the demise of soviets, finding their way out to other countries' business fields like tourism in the form of some kind of mafia. i live in south of turkey, antalya, and there is russian mafia here. italy is a joke. one has to have closely followed their last 10 years from the media to know what kind of joke their administration have become, first, court jesters in the form of of a media baron, then various jokesters. no sir. i dont need cliches. i know it first hand, and i dont like what i see.
Read radical news here
Yes but the existence of other news sources that are covering the protests (especially US-based sources like Fox or MSNBC) pretty much refutes his argument that CNN (an internationally focused network that has not been known for being close to the Bush administration) has lack of coverage of the protests due to the government forcing it to hide news stories that may show the US government in a bad light.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
I'm not Russian, I'm Asian, but from my point of view, a lot of the criticism against the Kremlin comes from pro-NATO Cold War biases. ie. Everything that NATO countries do is right, and everything Putin & Co do is wrong.
As somebody who doesn't want to see the world return to its pre-ColdWar state of European hegemony, I'll say that I'm glad that Russians are fostering a robust sense of nationalism, because historically they've been ruled over by outsiders and foreign-imposed govts. Even if you look at the Bolshevik Revolution that brought Russia under communist rule, it was backed by Western European powers trying to undermine the Czar. That drunken Boris Yeltsin was likewise a Manchurian Candidate who used to give away all kinds of concessions on international treaties, while using his control over the media to suppress the opposition, but he wasn't criticized because the West was benefitting from his undemocratic rule. Those aren't good precedents, and I think the Russians need to develop some natural immunity against foreign manipulation.
While some in the West cry for "more democracy in Russia," one can also note how there was a cry to "bring democracy to Iraq" -- and look what that caused. Similarly, while some will cry that Russia "must share oil" with the world, there was the similar "liberate vital oil supplies from Saddam's tyranny."
It's good to see the Russians regaining their natural strength after having it sapped by carpetbaggers from abroad. It's their country, and I like the fact that Russians can produce politicians who are willing to stand up for their nation, even if it comes to going nose-to-nose with Westerners who think the world is their oyster.
"There is Fox news" yes, and that is owned by Newscorp which along with Bush supporters like Microsoft are buying up social networking sites. Shortly after Fahrenheit-911 was released, major defense contractors announced they were investing heavily in theater chains.
Track campaign contributions and coverage patterns of all major networks: They are conservative and largely pro-Bush to the extent their credibility can suffer it and still keep them in business within their increasingly monopolized market structure. And they are facilitating instigation of war with yet another country, Iran. They do like harp about failures after the fact, though (as if that is any consolation). Even war-mongering accomplices have to do damage control for credibility's sake, and this way allows administration 'allies' to continue with each new conquest. Similarly, just wait until Bush flip flops on the ridiculous law of the sea treaty or tries to enact some sort of a carbon tax. He'd be dead meat. Similar to what? You're saying media hardliners are threatening to support someone even more pro-corporate and xenophobic than Bush? That is called "egging them on" which under the current circumstances is just a sign that the country has a problem with incipient fascism.
If MoveOn were supported by the Chinese or the Russians, I'd say they definitely wouldn't be an operating concern today... particularly if the country were experiencing a civil war as Russia has been.
The main difference between the USA and Russia is that today the former is creating frontlines of armed conflict not just outside its borders, but around the globe. American protectorates (home to plantations, sweatshops, mines and oilfields) have a rather high rate of death for journalists and union organizers who are unfriendly to corporate USA's bottom line. And if you thought these terrorists were not often linked to USA purse strings then you would be wrong.
The bit in TFA about internets was interesting. What TFA did not mention is that most international Internet traffic is routed through the USA: Plotted on a world map, we litterally look like the switchboard to the globe. With Washington now adamant that they will eavesdrop on any of this traffic as they please (and assisted from the likes of VeriSign), I would start planning for a regional internet too.
Slashdot should create a new topic category for Russia. It deserves its own topic category for story submissions; the horrors in today's Russia should be an active topic of discussion (condemnation?) for any Westerner who has an iota of compassion. This article by the "Washington Post" should scare any Westerner.
They've just become yet another evil dictatorship. They are smaller than the former Soviet Union, so are not quite the Soviet threat. I'm not sure we should focus on just one such E.D.
Table-ized A.I.
Although they're going in an Authoritarian direction, it's understandable because if they had a weak government, western banks and companies would completely exploit the country and drain it dry while the people starve. It's also more comfortable to have a world with two superpowers rather than one.
Frankly,
i just read this post for the Russian reversal puns , im greatly dissapointed.
It's not one kind of law vs. another. Laws that prevent people from dumping used motor oil in their backyard might be considered authoritarian by the self-centered dumper, but the rest of us appreciate efforts made to keep our water cleaner. I see there being a spectrum in which an action might affect the person more or less than the group. The implication made by he original poster and yourself that there is some line of demarcation seems more disingenuous than my 180-degree twist on the original poster's statement.
Blar.
What makes you think that? If anything your black-and-white view of actions affecting exclusively the actor, or exclusively the group is born of religious thinking.
Blar.
The Irony is that the US is censoring and limiting rights on the web every day!
Forget about the rightful ownership of intellectual property that the MPAA/RIAA are fighting for. The real issue is the prosecution of any and all that publish their thoughts on their blog or website. You can get sued for writing something not favorable to a major corporation or politician even if it's actually true!
Europe is the only region where rights are being protected and new one's created to match the new technologies. Where the US sees a "fine" working monopoly in iTunes, Windows or other products the Europeans see a limit on their freedoms. Regardless of the company's origin the EU's Court of Justice works to protect it's citizens and ensure that their rights are not circumvented by EULAs.
When the British scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the Web, at the pan-European research facility CERN, he did not know how important it would become. But decades later the threat against the freedom his technology offers is being severly limited by the US leadership, corporate America and their minions.
Russia, as far as I am concerned, is only taking after the leader in censorship. No, not China. The so called firewall of China has been proven a weak illusion. The really scary threats against freedom today is the lack of access to justice in the US. There's a reason SLAP-lawsuits are the favorite tool of corporations against small individuals. How can you fight a major corporation on a single salary? Take away justice from America, and you have Russia.
Being a fine troll such as yourself I find it interesting that at least this way your anti-European racism comes to light. Europe is the continent of enlightenment, where democracy was invented, and will lead humanity into a new dawn. Oh, and least we don't attack innocent countries for lack of WMDs.
The soviet union didn't go away....the Russian Bear just hibernated for a while. Maybe we can get a soviet variant of the Hong Kong Blondes. Dear god...now I'm going to go add Russia/former Russian holdings to the list of countries I don't set foot in without being more armed than they are. Currently including *Russia et al *China *Iraq *Iran *Singapore * Suggestions?
Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little.