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."

Spooky

[Stormwatch]

Seriously. I got a "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

So, does this mean that kremvax will be brought back online?

Re:Spooky

[Anonymous Coward]

> Seriously. I got a "Nothing for you to see here. Please move along."

You must be American. I got a "Please to move along, for nothing here sees YOU!"

Re:Not surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

No, next up is a homegrown search engine called Groognik, which uses the proprietary PutinRank(tm) to score pages for their positive content. Next they will take a page from the Chinese [searchengineland.com] and redirect search traffic to Groognik.

Obligatory

[MaXimillion]

In Soviet Russia, the government controls you.

No, wait...

Re:Russia already has a second world...

[Vlad_the_Inhaler]

If the Russians are going to keep our Internet out, can they please also keep their spam in.

Re:But we must be tolerant

[apparently]

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.

Wow. What kind of kool-aid did you get? I got a pack of Cheneyberry sitting in my cupboard, but I haven't tried it yet. Is the new FoxCherryBlast formula as good as the old?

Re:They'll need a catchy name for it

[Ragzouken]

Perhaps the iCurtain?

Re:They'll need a catchy name for it

[Belacgod]

The Silicon Curtain?

Re:They'll need a catchy name for it

[jujav4ik]

RedCurtain2.0 will look better :)

Re:They'll need a catchy name for it

[OneoFamillion]

They'll just have the Internyet, that way you'll never know which one you're talking about.