Slashdot Mirror


Russia Threatens To Shut Down Facebook Over Local Data Storage Laws (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: Facebook Inc. will be shut down in Russia next year if it fails to comply with requirements to store user data locally, according to the head of Russia's state communications watchdog. "The law is mandatory for everyone," Alexander Zharov told reporters Tuesday. Roskomnadzor will be forcing foreign internet companies to comply or shut down in the country. President Vladimir Putin signed a law in 2014 that requires global internet firms to store personal data of Russian clients on local servers. Companies ranging from Alphabet Inc.'s Google to Alibaba Group Holding Ltd complied, while others like Twitter Inc. demanded extra time to evaluate the economic feasibility of doing so.

90 comments

  1. Russia won't shut down FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    They need FB for the mid terms, and certainly for the 2020 presidential election.

    1. Re: Russia won't shut down FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, but they don't need it in Russia for that.

    2. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      They'll just access it through a VPN

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    3. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Also in the news this morning, Russia is considering banning Facebook during their next election cycle. I guess they know a little bit about how much influence Facebook can have on an election outcome...

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    4. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    5. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "No, I'm not gullible. Why do you ask?"

    6. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by KiloByte · · Score: 1

      They need FB for the mid terms, and certainly for the 2020 presidential election.

      Except that Zuckerberg plans to run, and I don't quite see him letting anyone use his company against him.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    7. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by rtb61 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Ohh fuck off, with the Russia bullshit. Why is it really, really smart for the Russian government to ban Facebook because you fucking nut burgers, it means local Russian companies will be able to snag that market, money stays in the country rather than raising debt, any fucking excuse can do and it is the smart thing to do. Simply cripple foreign web companies with bans to promote local development and hugely reduce revenue drain especially when those companies cheat on taxes like no other.

      It makes sound economic sense for all countries governments to interfere with the early start advantage of foreign companies, to promote local development. Those foreign companies are disruptive economic drain that bring very little to local economies, very few jobs, and are the biggest tax cheats, so bad across the board, they just syphon money out of the economy to of all places, no where else but tax havens across the planet.

      It is sound economic practice to cripple foreign internet companies with all sorts of bans, it really is. So data must be stored locally, no data can be exported, all foreign advertisement must be locally regulated, local servers must serve local users, anything you can come up to disadvantage foreign internet companies with their tax haven shenanigans, it sound economic practice and suck it up people, it will happen more and more and people will accept it.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    8. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by No+Longer+an+AC · · Score: 1

      Doesn't Russia have its own social media and search sites?

      I can't vouch for this source, but Facebook only barely makes the top 10 websites in Russia:

      Russia’s top 10 websites include Facebook, Google, Instagram, and YouTube

      The other sites are Russian and rank higher.

      How good a source can that be? They talk about the top 10 but only list 9!

    9. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by Nehmo · · Score: 1, Troll

      If anything, the democrats need it to keep whining about "foreign influence" ... while importing millions of illegal voters.

      That's an established truth. 17 intelligence agencies said so. It doesn't matter if we can't find the document signed by those 17 agencies. https://www.realclearpolitics.... Hillary said it was so, and we should believe someone as courageous as her. She bravely landed under sniper fire at an airport in Bosnia in 1996. http://www.businessinsider.com...
      Plus, we heard about that Russian meddling every day every hour for months. Something that is repeated that much must be true.

      --
      (||) Nehmo (||)
    10. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, the two biggies are VK and Yandex. Yandex also runs interestingly a taxi service, I see Yandex taxis all over St. Petersburg.

    11. Re: Russia won't shut down FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You'll have to try harder. Only Krembots and the terminally dim try to confuse the 3 agencies which actually looked for - and found - Russian state interference in the 2016 election with the 14 which didn't. Which are you?
          www.realclearpolitics.com? Don't make me laugh.

      What does Hillary's visit to Bosnia have to do with this other than as a dog whistle hate figure for Putin and Trump fanatics?

      Thanks though for another name to add to the list of Slashdot Ivans.

    12. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They need FB for the mid terms, and certainly for the 2020 presidential election.

      The local data storage is nothing to do with election hacking, or at least almost nothing. It is about control. They want to be able to seize anyone's entire facebook account data whenever they want to, and that is harder to do out of the country.

      Facebook is putting in some controls. I'm somewhat inclined to watch what they do, and if need be mandate something like the results for other similar technologies, but not how they get there.

      One thing Facebook is doing that is 100% wrong is they are not releasing all they have on the Russian ads to the people, though given that the Senate and such is getting it, it may end up there anyway. Either way, they got paid to advertise it to the public. It influenced an election. That should and that must be a public record, just as other political donations are. Now, I'm not saying foreign political donations are ever acceptable. They are not, but if they did occur records are still required.

    13. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oooh, that's actually self-consistent, logical, and plausible enough to be one of the actual motives. OMG! You're getting soooo good at this!

    14. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      lol,fucking fb, true piracy vk :)
        buy music from yandex on facebook https://www.infox.ru/news/251/science/internet/184252-andeksmuzyka-integriruet-cast-kontenta-v-facebook

    15. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by stephanruby · · Score: 2

      Please see the bad argument on page 33 "Guilt by Association" in https://bookofbadarguments.com...

      In other words, we don't have to be followers of Hillary Satan herself, nor readers of the leftist New York Times, to believe that the Russians may have tried to meddle with last year's presidential elections. President Trump's own government almost admitted as much last Friday.

      And if not Russia, someone did try to hack those elections in 20 states. And that's the important part, whoever it was, someone powerful seems to have launched a wide-scale assault on our democracy and on our country. And President Trump doesn't seem to be taking this assault on our country seriously at all.

    16. Re: Russia won't shut down FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So supporting voter ID laws and paper ballots backups doesnt count as taking it seriously? Voting processes are up to the individual states, so unless you are suggesting a federal takeover of yet another state program, then there isnt much the executive branch can do. Congress would need to create and fund a department specific for voting that the executive would need to staff and operate. But dont let specifics get in the way of Trump bashing. Carry on.

    17. Re: Russia won't shut down FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's why China has Weibo and a dozen other clones of western social media companies. Russia wants to do the same. Vk is nothing close to FB, so banning FB to foster in country growth while snagging design concepts from foreign firms minimizes economic input required to create a platform. As much as I think Zuck sucks, this is where the US actually needs to step up with WTO complaints to protect IP creation abroad.

    18. Re: Russia won't shut down FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At what point does an advertizing business need to protect its clients? Suppose you oppose local building ordinances and you get a billboard. Does the agency have a need to release your name? What backlash could a person have there if they ran a business? Think fire marshalls, health inspectors, etc thay could use the power of the state to retaliate against a person just stating their case publicly. It is a slippery slope that will probably just quash privacy for average citizens under the guise of protecting democracy. How is that Patriot act working out for you post-Snowden?

    19. Re: Russia won't shut down FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      VK is actually better than FB in a lot of respects.

      The problem is that because FB is being threatened with being banned from the Motherland, they are allowing Russia to push their propaganda in hopes of this decision being reversed. FB's actions of allowing a nation-state to spew propaganda is a reprehensible thing.

      However, as of now, there isn't a real replacement for FB... Running a social media site really doesn't take that much, if done right, since existing Internet protocols can do 99.99% of the work. XMPP can do chat, pictures can be stored on a web site (what a concept), movies can be stored as well, or streamed via OBS. FB groups? Web forums can do this. Wall posts? Basic CRUD web design.

      Now, how do you pay for it? Easy as hell. No ads, but let the user know that they will need to run a mining client for "x" amount of time in order to get access.

    20. Re: Russia won't shut down FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Presidential Elections in the Russian Federation are in 2018. President Putin can't run because of the two consecutive term limitin the constitution. But don't worry, it won't be Navalny or any of these Western financed traitors.

    21. Re: Russia won't shut down FB by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      What they would like is for their own citizens to use one they control, instead of Facebook.

    22. Re: Russia won't shut down FB by stephanruby · · Score: 2

      Well, first off. President Donald Trump is our leader. He needs to tackle the attack head-on in a speech.

      And no, he doesn't need to use the bully pulpit to defend himself or protect his fragile ego. As a country, we've been attacked and we're way past egos. And whatever he does, some haters are just going to hate. It's not his job to address that group. It's his job to address the rest of the American people.

      Take the example of President George W Bush, he did many things wrong both before and after 9/11, but when 9/11 happened, at least he addressed the attack publicly and then launched a full investigation into what went wrong on our end. It didn't matter if the 9/11 commission would uncover things that were potentially embarrassing to him. This is just something that as a leader, he had to do. And no, national defense isn't just up to the individual States. Why are you suggesting a federal takeover of a state program? National defense is already a national responsibility. And for instance, the fact that our Federal government inspects our bridges and our most critical roads doesn't mean that the Federal government has taken over the role of building them or maintaining them itself.

    23. Re: Russia won't shut down FB by baristabrian · · Score: 0

      This, just in: EVERYONE tries to "influence" elections. So, what was your point?

      --
      -- "I'm not in a hurry; I'm in Hawaii." The Homeless Guy
    24. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

      Doesn't Russia have its own social media and search sites?

      VK (VKontakt) for social media (my wife has an account, for talking to her friends in Russia and Israel) ; mail.ru for mail (pretty much ditto, but I have an account too). Search - I dunno ; local Google maybe. As long as their Cyrillic suport is better than Slashdots'. It could hardly be worse.

      --
      Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
    25. Re: Russia won't shut down FB by stephanruby · · Score: 2

      I'm not making a moral argument. We've done much worse to some South American and Middle-Eastern countries ourselves.

      My point is that, whether it's Mainland China trying to use a bunch of Buddhist monks to pass campaign contributions to the Bill Clinton campaign many years ago or whether it's a large foreign power that has the audacity to try to hack our elections, we need to strengthen our defenses and increase our safeguards if need be, and perhaps even retaliate if we deem the attacks serious enough.

      After all, large foreign powers like China or Russia have quasi-unlimited budgets and battalions of hackers at their disposal. Our self-governance is at stake. If they tried it once without feeling our wrath, they're going to try it again.

    26. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by stephanruby · · Score: 1

      If you're talking about the DACA amnesty, then at least President Trump seems to be on board with that one too.

    27. Re: Russia won't shut down FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At what point does an advertizing business need to protect its clients? Suppose you oppose local building ordinances and you get a billboard. Does the agency have a need to release your name? What backlash could a person have there if they ran a business? Think fire marshalls, health inspectors, etc thay could use the power of the state to retaliate against a person just stating their case publicly. It is a slippery slope that will probably just quash privacy for average citizens under the guise of protecting democracy. How is that Patriot act working out for you post-Snowden?

      Yet another example of someone claiming the exception proves the rule. It doesn't. Gay marriage doesn't lead to people marrying their dog, nor does having open books on political spending automatically destroy lives. Lots of people donate to politicians and they go to work day after day...

      You cannot protect freedom of speech if all normal speech is drowned in the hurricane of noise from bots and foreign actors masquerading as Americans.

    28. Re: Russia won't shut down FB by knorthern+knight · · Score: 1

      > Gay marriage doesn't lead to people marrying their dog, nor does
      > having open books on political spending automatically destroy lives.
      > Lots of people donate to politicians and they go to work day after day...

      Speaking of...
      * gay marriage
      * public data on political spending
      * and going to work

      Have you heard of Brendan Eich? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --

      I'm not repeating myself
      I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
    29. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      In Russia, it would have very little influence. The vast majority of Russians hang out on Russia-specific Facebook clone, VKontakte. That one is already under the government control.

    30. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      That it "makes sound economic sense" doesn't change the fact that it's ultimately about censorship. Russia has instituted its own "great firewall", with mandatory ISP-level bans for content it deems illegal, but it's rather like a game of whack-a-mole at the moment, and makes it hard to track the people posting it. They'd much prefer all content to be actually hosted in the country, where it's subject to SORM and Yarovaya's Law, for full-on warrantless wiretapping and easy censorship.

    31. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      At lot of the times that censorship is nothing to do with the sound management of government but corruption and hence economics at the core. All sorts of excuses arise but the reality is often nothing more than greed. So Russian corporations piss in the Russian governments ear about foreign competition, so they come up with excuses to cripple which in censorship technically but really is just economic censorship. This is not mom and pop store stuff, this is billions of dollars corporate stuff. Not the Russians making it happen but the US government making it happen via their abuses at all levels. Nobody trusts anybody and all digital infrastructure will inevitably be localised but in light of the abuses by the US government, it is a sound and logical thing to do (not that Russia or China or the UK are any better behaved but all face the same risk from each other).

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    32. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Russia is different from US in that regard - in Russia, corporations are appendages of the government, not the other way around.

    33. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      Nope Russia is different across the board. There are three distinct groups, the professional politicians/bureaucrats, the oligarchs and organised crime. If you attempt to cross lines, you get rather viciously smacked down. The politicians and bureaucrats are dominant and organised crime the weakest but organised crime definitely do most of the killing and of course they provide services to the oligarchs. The Russians government has a solid history of wanting to break people in the Gulags over a decade or so, not killing them (you likely will survive but will be physically and mentally broken). Each group has very distinct areas of control, cross areas of control at your peril, this makes it hard to subvert government because you are likely to face repercussions from all three groups of different natures (so the Russian government might pursue you via the courts but taking no chances the Oligarchs might pay organised crime to get in there first and kill you and the Government might ignore that outcome as problem solved). So most definitely no corporations in partnership with corrupt government ie fascism, as in the US system. China is different too, where government are the oligarchs and organised crime and lose in that system and they prosecute you for the crimes, all of them commit and then straight up kill you.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    34. Re:Russia won't shut down FB by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      Look, dude, I'm Russian. It's not how any of it works. I know, I grew up there.

  2. In Soviet Russia by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

    Social Media blocks you!

    --

    Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    1. Re:In Soviet Russia by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is true. It is about censorship so they can root through it. Keep that in mind, every other country, when your laws demand the same thing.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    2. Re:In Soviet Russia by Stephen+Battleware · · Score: 0

      @ Impy It's more than just censorship or even surveillance - they will use FB to find dissent, then arrest, prosecute and persecute.

    3. Re:In Soviet Russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In Soviet American, Antifa blocks you.

    4. Re:In Soviet Russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      EXACTLY, UK is just as bad, GERMANY is worse, and AMERICA is heading that way. (Technically US already there, but the velvet glove gives the illusion of freedom and liberty)

    5. Re:In Soviet Russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is also about supporting local industry. When some foregin service is wildly popular, they say "run our portion of it here, or we block you and have some others run a similiar service locally".

      Either way, they win. Perhaps facebook set up a Russia server in Moscow. More work for Russian server operators. Perhaps they refuse; even more work for Russian server operators setting up the replacement service.

      Why would a Russian bother accessing facebook through a VPN? He may want a "social network", but it doesn't have to be facebook specifically. Like everybody else, they go with what's easy and where everybody else is.

      Censorship is a weak motive. Surely, Russians are more used to government messing with them. So they wouldn't be dumb enough to organize dissent on a platform like facebook. Even if the server is in the US where the FSB can't grab it by force - they can still have infiltrators join any dissident facebook group and spy from the inside.

  3. Let 'em by Stephen+Battleware · · Score: 1, Interesting

    'Way back, western gov'ts, businesses, and the chatty classes sold us the idea that trading with oppressive and repressive regimes would open them up to freedom of speech and rights and so on. Many or most of these regimes just used the technology they acquired to tighten the screws. Worse, we in the West have become lightly dependent on the economics from these nasty regimes. Worse yet, some western companies participate in the repressions directly. It's really time for companies like FB, Microsoft, Google, Cisco et al. to take a stand and stand up to these bullies. 'And we should back them.

    1. Re:Let 'em by FudRucker · · Score: 0

      just pull out of those nations, block russia, iran and other oppressive nations access completely, and when they complain, tell them you tasted the internet, now either open up and be democratic & free or quit complaining and shut-up and build your own internet, and if you build your own internet it can not touch our internet until you change to a democratic & free society (GNU/Freedom)

      --
      Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
    2. Re: Let 'em by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I thought that FB, Apple, MS, and Google are producing/maintaining censorship/surveillence platforms. Why would I back any of this shit just because Russia wants to censor other shit than them?

    3. Re: Let 'em by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clearly you have forgotton what truly matters. Shareholder value is more important than your little moral crisis.

  4. It is only fair by houghi · · Score: 2, Funny

    If the NSA can read everything, why not the rest of the world.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    1. Re:It is only fair by TheEden · · Score: 1

      As funny as it is - that's the whole point. Russian government created local storage law as a leverage to have a piece of that particular pie. They want data on their citizens in their data centers.

  5. Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hope this evil spy company gets shut down everywhere.

  6. Poor FB... Russia buys ads from them, now the boot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Poor Facebook... they allow Russia to buy ads, now are kicked out of the Motherland.

    Oh well... at least there is VK, which is a better FB than FB.

  7. Why not do like embassies and parts of airports? by Edward+Nardella · · Score: 1

    I know it isn't a simple solution. Sure the legal framework that embassies operate under might not be ideal, so make a new framework. Not a simple thing to do, but with growing international interest in controlling data and corporations resistant partly due to economic reasons something like this could potentially be a good compromise.

    --
    My sig doesn't address Anons, sigs aren't visible to them.
  8. The Internet has borders by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And now they're asserting themselves.

  9. Fuck Russia, and fuck Facebook. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This comment intentionally left blank.

  10. evaluate the economic feasibility by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i highly doubt that the russian law (or any other) will give a flying fuck whether a law is economic feasible, comply or get out of the market.

  11. okay bye by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    the internet would be a better place if russia just unplugged from the internet

  12. Mark Zuckerberg by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm sure Mark and his executives are all shivering in their boots and losing sleep over this.

  13. Facebook non-compliant evil doer by deathguppie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is the biggest problem that social media companies face. How to protect not only their business interests but also the people behind the data. At one level you are giving dissidents a platform to speak, but also a platform for raw propaganda. On the other hand you are storing a social map that will make rounding up and executing or imprisoning so much easier. I don't envy their position but a lot of people have pointed out that something should have been done about these issues years ago.

    --
    once more into the breach
    1. Re:Facebook non-compliant evil doer by Stephen+Battleware · · Score: 1

      @ guppie "something should have been done about these issues years ago" .. .. you think?

    2. Re:Facebook non-compliant evil doer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is the biggest problem that social media companies face. How to protect not only their business interests but also the people behind the data. At one level you are giving dissidents a platform to speak, but also a platform for raw propaganda.
      On the other hand you are storing a social map that will make rounding up and executing or imprisoning so much easier. I don't envy their position but a lot of people have pointed out that something should have been done about these issues years ago.

      It's guarding the chicken coop for the 21st century. You've got useful product (users) who you can sell to the marketing arm of every business on the planet. And a bunch of foxes (oppressive governments) want to come along and mess it all up by making people too scared to let themselves be sold.

      Do we let the foxes have those users, or do we try to put up a better fence?
      Let's see what the business analysts say about the bottom line on those users.

      That's all that really matters anyway, right?

    3. Re:Facebook non-compliant evil doer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I just listened to a podcast ("Reply All", I think) about how Russia basically sabotaged, then bought out LiveJournal back in the day, in order to stamp out its use by dissidents and critics of powerful oil oligarchs tied to Putin.

    4. Re:Facebook non-compliant evil doer by houghi · · Score: 1

      Yeah, because that was always a top priority: users privacy. That is way you MUST use your own name, because they are concerned.
      Or perhaps they are just worried that the states can take that data without paying for it.

      Yes, something should have done years ago, but nobody cared enough. The companies knew and they did not care, so fuck em.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  14. Maybe the EU will grow a pair by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Let's hope the EU will take this as an example to grow a pair and not allow corporations to circumvent local laws by keeping data in the US.

    So far they've always been eager to sell out their citizens' data to the US under some bullshit figleaf agreement.

    1. Re: Maybe the EU will grow a pair by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey genius, the EU already has these laws in place and has them before Russia.

      Why do I bother to read the ignorant shit here after all these years?

    2. Re: Maybe the EU will grow a pair by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      +5

  15. Let 'em go by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm tired of all the porn-friend-requests that probably come from there.

  16. Not doing business with Russia? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Net gain the way I see it.

    They're responsible for enough corruption, scams, and deceit, that even aside from their unsavory politics, we'd be better off without them.

    Only worse place is Alabama, and that's because they're hell bent on electing an unmitigated theocracy to power.

  17. Isn't this the law of the land in many places? by ctilsie242 · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are a lot of places that enacted laws that require data to be stored on local servers to that country. Russia, and the EU require this. China requires not just this, but 51% ownership of any venture on their soil.

    What is surprising is that the US doesn't have these rules. Critical info on US citizens can be stored anywhere, even a hostile nation that would use that info for its economic or military gains.

    1. Re:Isn't this the law of the land in many places? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      The EU doesn't require that data be hosted locally, only that data protection provisions be extended to wherever it is hosted. Google "Privacy Shield".

      Of course if the data were properly encrypted in the first place, it wouldn't really matter where it was hosted.

    2. Re:Isn't this the law of the land in many places? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, it is the law of the land in many places.

      But American companies having to obey the law of other countries, even when they are operating there, is news to many Americans. /., after all, is an American website.

      Plus, this article fits the "Evil Russians" narrative, so it serves as good click bait.

    3. Re:Isn't this the law of the land in many places? by Wrath0fb0b · · Score: 1

      Doesn't that imply that "a lot of places" are willing to censor/block the internet connectivity of companies that don't comply? Or do they only attempt it against folks with business/assets that they know they can use as leverage?

      Obviously Google and Facebook rely on ad revenue that is collected in each country, so they can't just refuse. But when a smaller internet site flat out refuses, the options to enforce the law against an entity with no assets in the country are limited.

    4. Re:Isn't this the law of the land in many places? by guruevi · · Score: 2

      The US has certain protection laws, they don't specify specifically "where" it has to be hosted, but they do require US companies to cooperate with investigations and demands from the government *regardless* of "where" it is hosted.

      The EU, well, that ended up being a law without any teeth to it. The EU can demand its information laws to extend to the US or other locations, but it knows damn well that it can't enforce those laws outside it's borders.

      China and Russia are the only ones that are actually standing up to the corporations. China knows it has a market the corporations can't ignore, so it can demand pretty much anything and they make sure the corporation knows that playing in their market means they'll have to grin and bear while providing the lube.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
    5. Re:Isn't this the law of the land in many places? by CaptainDork · · Score: 2

      Agreed, and ...

      "Once it's digitized, it's in the public domain." ~ © 2017 CaptainDork

      It really doesn't matter where it's stored. We've seen that security is more porous than a neutrino passing through the universe.

      --
      It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
    6. Re:Isn't this the law of the land in many places? by olau · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I talked to a lawyer about the data protection directives in EU not long ago, and according to her it's just a question of time.

      The directive is actually clear - due to the whole NSA thing (gag orders and whatnot), US-based companies can't provide the necessary guarantees that personal data for EU citizens will be adequately protected.

      Google has a form you can fill in that they claim is good enough. But according to her, it's pretty obvious it's not. People just pretend it is. They can keep pretending some time yet, but at some point a verdict is going land and set the precedent that it isn't.

      Once that precedent is set, organizations in the EU will face a legal risk if they continue using the services. The new data protection directives to come into force next year has some relatively high fines associated.

      I'm not an expert, but I'm of the impression that the EU directive is actually reasonable and acknowledges that law enforcement sometimes needs to access to information after having consulted a court - it's the situation with NSA and the almost total lack of control with that organization in the US that's the problem.

  18. Do it! by slashdot_commentator · · Score: 2

    I hope Facebook responds by never accepting another Russian funded ad. Not just the Russian propaganda machine will be thwarted in the US, but also Europe, and any other place Facebook has a presence. The Russian audience, by contrast, is minuscule, and Russia is just a big gas station with outdated weapons for export.

    --
    There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
    1. Re:Do it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, because Facebook can infallibly tell if the person paying for an ad is a Russian agent...

    2. Re:Do it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not that simple to thwart the Russian propaganda machine. They are mostly operating over troll accounts reached via botnets.

    3. Re:Do it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hope Facebook responds by never accepting another Russian funded ad. Not just the Russian propaganda machine will be thwarted in the US, but also Europe, and any other place Facebook has a presence.

      LOL. Check out Zuckerberg's Twitter, even he admits that 100k worth of ads from potentially Russian interests are nothing in the face of the hundreds of millions of dollars spent campaigning by the candidates, or are even a drop in the bucket compared to their own revenue from just political ads where they got 900 million USD during the year and a half leading up to last November.

    4. Re:Do it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Facebook could remove all physical presence in Russia. Continue to leave servers on the Internet doing what they always did. Claim that they operate only outside of the US and state that no Russians should use their service buried under terms & conditions in the EULA. Completely ignore the Russian mandate.

      Your average Russian citizen will ignore the T&C and continue to us Facebook normally. Russians could still buy ads and still do all of the things they normally did. The Russian government would need to implement the "Great Firewall" to stop this. If Facebook got into any hot water for some reason involving a Russian, they point to T&C and say they were being used illicitly and will terminate said account.

    5. Re:Do it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Poe's law must have a close cousin for this type of situation. Every day i see 2-5 people on my feed who are so trollishly inane, I can't tell if they are fake accounts or just really lonely, angry people.

    6. Re:Do it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funds don't have nationality. If you accept that the Russian government placed ads to try to influence the US election, you have to also accept that they could run their operation through a VPN, through an office physically located in China, or even outsource the operation to foreign nationals.

    7. Re:Do it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it wouldn't be able to pay (or collect funds from) people in Russia, unless they have a foreign bank account (which is only a few wealthy people). Russian Joe Sixpack could still use the site, but FB would be locked out of any benefit of him using it.

  19. About time! by Gussington · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I never understood why this isn't already a thing. If a previous article is to be believed, Data is the new oil, so why would any sovereign nation just allow a foreign company come and drain all of your natural resources?

    1. Re:About time! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I never understood why this isn't already a thing. If a previous article is to be believed, Data is the new oil, so why would any sovereign nation just allow a foreign company come and drain all of your natural resources?

      I doubt that's what this is about.

      Remember LiveJournal? Russia didn't like the fact that dissidents and critics could freely communicate and organise on LiveJournal, but they couldn't get access to the users details. So what did they do? They bought LiveJournal, relocated all the servers to Russia and have free and unfettered access to user's information.

      Of course, a lot of people have moved on from LiveJournal and onto other social media platforms. Russia can't buy them all, but if the servers are physically in Russia then they can walk in and access whatever they want...

  20. Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... forcing foreign internet companies to comply ...

    We don't other countries spying on our citizens. We want to spy on our citizens without competition.

    While there's very obvious reasons for localization of data (some practical), people are still exposed to some very dangerous problems.

  21. Dear Putin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please don't! I have many Russian girlfriends on Facebook. This would be a tragedy.

  22. Re:Poor FB... Russia buys ads from them, now the b by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They are being kicked out because they have co-operated with investigations into Russian influence in the election, localization of data is just the pretext.

  23. Yes; I raised issue in 2010 & proposed solutio by Paul+Fernhout · · Score: 2

    http://web.archive.org/web/201...
    "Now, there are many people out there (including computer scientists) who may raise legitimate concerns about privacy or other important issues in regards to any system that can support the intelligence community (as well as civilian needs). As I see it, there is a race going on. The race is between two trends. On the one hand, the internet can be used to profile and round up dissenters to the scarcity-based economic status quo (thus legitimate worries about privacy and something like TIA). On the other hand, the internet can be used to change the status quo in various ways (better designs, better science, stronger social networks advocating for some healthy mix of a basic income, a gift economy, democratic resource-based planning, improved local subsistence, etc., all supported by better structured arguments like with the Genoa II approach) to the point where there is abundance for all and rounding up dissenters to mainstream economics is a non-issue because material abundance is everywhere. So, as Bucky Fuller said, whether is will be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race to the very end. While I can't guarantee success at the second option of using the internet for abundance for all, I can guarantee that if we do nothing, the first option of using the internet to round up dissenters (or really, anybody who is different, like was done using IBM [tabulators] in WWII Germany) will probably prevail. So, I feel the global public really needs access to these sorts of sensemaking tools in an open source way, and the way to use them is not so much to "fight back" as to "transform and/or transcend the system". As Bucky Fuller said, you never change thing by fighting the old paradigm directly; you change things by inventing a new way that makes the old paradigm obsolete."

    --
    A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
  24. This is Nadia! by tlambert · · Score: 1

    This is Nadia!


      (/^\)
      )\ /(
    (.-'-.)
    /\_ _/\
    \\) (//
    /---\

    Nadia is only 5,884.3 miles from you!
    Hookup with Nadia tonight!

  25. I would agree with the law. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Canadian MasterCard account information is stored in a server in the US and not in Canada. Privacy laws do not extend past the borders and technically the US can do whatever they want with your personal information and sell it to whoever they want.

  26. F Russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Nuke those Slavic pigs.