The Kremlin Tightens Its Grip on the Internet 280
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."
Not so fast (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Adopting new tactics (Score:2, Informative)
Hardly so simple (Score:5, Informative)
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.
It's about freedom. (Score:3, Informative)
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 [slashdot.org]. 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.
Re:What CNN tells about anti-Bush demonstrations.. (Score:1, Informative)
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 [cnn.com] 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.
Any surprise here ? (Score:3, Informative)
all countries act as per their cultures towards internet.
Russian Police Psychiatry: Scarier than Halloween (Score:5, Informative)
The "Washington Post" recently published a chilling story [washingtonpost.com] 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.
hmm (Score:4, Informative)
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 [livejournal.com] (rus) is defending arrested leader of "Red blitzkrieg" by the blogger well known for his sympathies for all things Soviet.
number 3 [livejournal.com] (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 [livejournal.com] (#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 [livejournal.com] 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.
Russians in the West Remain Russians (Score:3, Informative)
She is a member of the Rodina block [washingtonpost.com], 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. [washingtonpost.com]
Narochnitskaya herself has opposed the Orange Revolution (a.k.a. the democratization movement) in the Ukraine [washingtonpost.com].
Worst of all, the Rodina party has fueled racist xenophobic violence in Russia. According to a report in 2004 [acadiau.ca] 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."
Censorship - how it looks in practice (Score:1, Informative)
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.