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Law Repressing Social Media, Bloggers Now In Effect In Russia
An anonymous reader writes On Friday, Russia implemented a new law that significantly limits its citizens' online free speech. Under this new law, social media sites must "retain user data for at least six months...within the country's boundaries so it can be available for government inspection." Also, "bloggers with at least 3,000 daily readers must register with Roskomnadzor, the regulator that also oversees Russia's main media outlets." This, of course, means that popular bloggers will no longer be able to remain anonymous.
the Berlin Wall goes back up.
USA retains it forever, no matter what laws are in place.
The 80's called and they want to know if you need a foreign policy.
And.... this information collection is legal in Russia, while what the NSA is doing is illegal.
the USSR is back
Hmm,
Edward Snowden's professed mission in life is to enable secure, anonymous internet communications.
Edward Snowden's visa in Russia has expired.
Now this.
Snowden is on thin ice, I think. Where could he possibly go from Russia, except for a dark hole in GitMo?
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
Unlike the US/NSA.
No, the NSA is monitoring social media and bloggers, in Russia they have progressed from just monitoring to repressing them. I'm in no way in favor of what the NSA is doing but there is a difference between watcing bloggers and telling bloggers they have to register if they get a hitcount over 3000 or suffer the consequences, whatever they may be.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
If all the Russian bloggers are just government controlled parrots, just switch to reading foreign blogs.
Also, you could have a setup where your Russian blogger has only a single reader, a foreigner who re-blogs everything they write (unless Russia doesn't take kindly to being clever like this).
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
freedom AFTER speech? not so much.
This link puts a little meat on the bones, though the story is still sketchy. Seems the law was aimed at 5 or 6 specific bloggers, though probably upwards of 500 could wind up being covered. ISPs not happy with it. Law purports to regulate Russian-language blogging, not limited by geography or physical placement. So a foreigner could theoretically run afoul of it if they publish in Russian (and become popular doing so) while a Russian could write anything they want without worry as long as they do it in another language?
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
It's 3000 unique visitors.
And
Source: http://rt.com/politics/177248-...
I'm not saying that I agree with their line, but what was the last ruling on slander or defamation in the US? I think it was more than USD 855.
Also, after what happened with the US backed NGOs trying to influence public opinion around the former USSR resulting in color revolutions (and, arguably, what's happening in the Ukraine now,) I'd have probably done the same to protect my national interests.
Not that it makes this kind of policy, but Russia has had authoritarian governments for 500 years. What's the US's excuse?
The Russian law is to expose anonymous bloggers so Putin and his cronies know where to send the assassins when they see someone criticizing them or exposing their corruption. Same as when they had all the dissenting mainstream Russian journalists assassinated. Now Chairman Putin and his friends control the mainstream media, so on to phase 2: online journalists and bloggers. Of course they are thinking that announcing the law might save some money too, by intimidating people into not exposing the Chairman's lies (like the bullshit about Ukrainians needing any outside impetus to oust a corrupt Russian-backed president who syphoned off billions of dollars into his own pocket while sliding deeper into Chairman Putin's pocket).
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
"bloggers with at least 3,000 daily readers must register with Roskomnadzor, the regulator that also oversees Russia's main media outlets."
Ironically, it also means that bloggers are now treated the same as journalists - isn't that what they've wanted for years? ;-)
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Because all those bloggers critical of President Obama are being rounded up as we speak...
Russia has a reputation for jailing or even killing critics of Putin or his allies. The last president of the United States accused of that sort of activity against opponents ended up resigning before his inevitable impeachment and conviction. Even in the latest IRS scandal, which may or may not represent targeting of critics by someone in the executive branch, the end result has been quite the opposite to what one would find in Russia.
The US has no lack of problems, and people in positions of power will always tend towards abusing it. But all in all, it's probably the safest place in the world to speak one's opinion without fear of state persecution.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.