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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.

18 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. next... by guygo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    the Berlin Wall goes back up.

    1. Re:next... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You mean the Iron Curtain

      And yes.

    2. Re:next... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Whoa, wait a sec. Do you both actually believe that the damage can be blamed on any ONE party?

    3. Re:next... by fustakrakich · · Score: 5, Insightful

      There is only one party. Bickering factions are what we see on the TV. It plays well to a wide audience.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    4. Re:next... by Karmashock · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Russia's economy is dominated by its energy exports. It can and is largely subsisting on that income.

      If you want to break Russia's economy then you need to give europe an alternative energy source.

      Controversial as it may be, we should probably be advocating hydrologic fracturing in Eastern Europe. If Ukraine and Poland can ween themselves off Russian energy imports and possibly become net exporters to Germany then Russia's economic position will collapse indifferent to whether or not they censor bloggers.

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    5. Re:next... by sumdumass · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This no true scottsman argument is getting tiresome. It seems that whenever someone points to the flaws in communist regimes, someone has to point out how it isn't really communism.

        Well here is the problem with that. Whenever is implimented, it fails to follow pure theory and runs into some authoritarian nightmare because it has to be forced onto people who do not want to settle wigh the less that the theory allows or do extra with no extra reward to make it work.

      Communism simply does not scale outside micro groups dedicated to making it work.it has nothing to do with leaders wrapling themselves up in pretty cloths or hero worship. It has to do with forcing people to accept it. Like it or not, all attempts have snd will continue to devolve into some brutal fascist reality that you can clsim is not communism snd suggest it be tried again.

  2. Mr Obama; by MouseTheLuckyDog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The 80's called and they want to know if you need a foreign policy.

  3. Re:At least the Russians are being upfront by BradMajors · · Score: 5, Informative

    And.... this information collection is legal in Russia, while what the NSA is doing is illegal.

  4. Re:At least the Russians are being upfront by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  5. Easy fix by penguinoid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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
  6. Re:the USSR is back by gymbrown · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I remember as a kid reading the Soviet Union’s constitution giving Soviet citizens more rights than the US. They had a very good constitution and Canada had none. I thought that in Canada, there was no protection similar to our first amendment but Canadians could say, type and publish their thoughts freely. The Soviet union required typewriters to be registered with a typing sample so unauthorized speech wouldn’t contaminate the citizens. Russia is going down the same hole as the Soviet Union and we are following close behind.

    --
    Embrace the future.
  7. freedom OF speech? well, of course. by turkeydance · · Score: 4, Interesting

    freedom AFTER speech? not so much.

  8. Re:At least better than many western countries by DivineKnight · · Score: 4, Funny

    Must be /. night over at 4-chan tonight.

  9. More details by Arker · · Score: 4, Informative

    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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  10. Re:At least the Russians are being upfront by qpqp · · Score: 3, Informative

    they get a hitcount over 3000

    It's 3000 unique visitors.

    "The draft introduced the definition of a popular blogger as someone whose internet page attracts at least 3,000 readers every day (earlier this week the authorities announced that these should be unique visitors, not just page hits) [...]"

    And

    Individuals who violate the law can be fined between 10,000 and 30,000 rubles (US$285-$855) and in cases when popular blogs are maintained by legal entities fines can reach 500,000 rubles ($14,285)."

    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.

  11. Context by Livius · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not that it makes this kind of policy, but Russia has had authoritarian governments for 500 years. What's the US's excuse?

  12. Re:At least the Russians are being upfront by theshowmecanuck · · Score: 4, Informative

    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).

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    -- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
  13. Re:the USSR is back by sumdumass · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If the Soviet's constitution gave the people just one right, it gave more than the US constitution does. That is because the US constiitution does not give or grant rights. It bars government from taking away some of the rights peolle already posess.

    This is a pretty important difference.