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It’s now illegal in Russia to share an image of Putin as a gay clown
- hartator 10y agoIt's also illegal in France to insult officials.
- cmac2992 10y agoI believe thats a was not is https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/07/26/yes-it-really-was-a-crime-in-france-to-insult-the-president-until-this-week-heres-why/?utm_term=.1a16ba5290bb https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/07/26...
- elastic_church 10y agocareful, some people are going to misinterpret your accurate assessment of laws that are completely benign to the collective conscious as a "whataboutism" simply because the soviets made equally accurate assessments of civil rights double standards
- MrZongle2 10y agoI can't help but think that almost every future biography of Putin will mention this law, and the most unflattering ones will contain examples. Sort of a long-term Streisand Effect.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y agoFuture Buzzfeed article: "Only 21st century kids will remember these 10 images of Putin in drag. Number 8 would have gotten you life in prison!"
- MrZongle2 10y ago"Number 8 would have gotten you life in prison!" That's Art Reeducation Camp, comrade.
- Mendenhall 10y agoThat only took a couple years to go from internet extremism to gay putin clowns. https://themoscowtimes.com/news/internet-extremism-bill-passes-first-duma-reading-30613 https://themoscowtimes.com/news/internet-extremism-bill-pass... Something, something, slippery slope?
- draw_down 10y agoWell, this is how power functions of course.
- ganfortran 10y agoLOL, Russian Government apparently don't understand how Internet really works.
- btown 10y agoNo LOL for the person subjected to "compulsory psychiatric care"...
- yaakov34 10y agoYou underestimate them. They've created a web of vaguely worded, overbroad laws which everybody is violating all the time without even trying. It allows the government to demand any user's data at any time, to have all Russian ISPs block access to any site by administrative fiat, and to bring up on charges anyone they choose. It's been working quite well - not in hermetically blocking access to some stupid image, but in reducing traffic to opposition sites by 90% (I believe that this is what they boasted about when they first blocked access to Navalny's blog) and in distracting a number of people from their work with endless legal trouble. Not much of a LOL.
- havetocharge 10y agoThis is quite accurate. The developments have created a culture of fear, where speaking or acting against authority is while technically possible, is unwise (from the practical point of view of a single individual).
- gozur88 10y agoAgreed. The value in this kind of censorship isn't that the government can put troublemakers in jail. It's in scaring everyone into considering how what they're about to view or write will look to the government years from now, before they view or write it.
- mikeash 10y agoMore like, Hacker News reader doesn't understand how power really works. It's not about preventing anyone from ever seeing this image. It's about oppressing people who would share it. Somebody posts this online, gets a million views, and goes to jail? That's a win for the government, not a loss.
- sremani 10y agohttp://foreignpolicy.com/2011/06/30/countries-where-you-could-go-to-jail-for-calling-the-president-a-dick/ http://foreignpolicy.com/2011/06/30/countries-where-you-coul... Not condoning what's happening in Russia, just pointing out how prevalent similar practices are around the world.
- tptacek 10y agoTurkey, Poland, South Africa: these are parts of the same story, of a global rise in populism-exploiting authoritarian governments. Thailand, Iran: did we expect better? The only interesting example here is that you can get in trouble for calling Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands a "whore".
- mamon 10y agoPlease don't call Poland "authoritarian" - in fact I would argue that we have more democracy and civil liberties than Germany (noone here is censoring newspapers which write unconvenient facts, like that about immigrants raping women), Sweden (you won't be arrested for criticizing government's immigration policy), UK (noone is trying to make encryption illegal), or USA (noone here is creating mass surveilance programs, or requiring you to provide all your online accounts with passwords on entry, or forfeiting your cash without even charging you with something). There's just normal, democratically elected government and a bunch of paranoid celebrities and journalists who make a lot of noise and FUD.
- literallycancer 10y agoNormal democratically elected government? You are kidding, right? The only reason you aren't creating mass surveillance programs is that you can't afford it. Trying to ban abortion is fucked up enough, but what about the attempts to undermine the separation of powers? Oh and while I'm at it: the Polish government willingly hosted CIA black sites and facilitated abduction and torture of innocent people that haven't been charged with anything.
- 10y ago
- jluxenberg 10y ago>> A Russian court has ... sentenced >> the culprit to compulsory psychiatric care. https://twitter.com/MoscowTimes/status/849413473813639168 https://twitter.com/MoscowTimes/status/849413473813639168 Eek.
- pinewurst 10y agoThat's part of the Russian tradition of forced psychiatric care. Sounds like a case of "sluggish schizophrenia" to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_in_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_...
- madamelic 10y agoI guess I see why Trump admires Putin and Kim Il-Sung so much. Putin has the ultimate safe space, no one is allowed to say or do anything bad about him. And NK's media reveres Kim Il-Sung as a god.
- chirau 10y agoI don't see the big deal. I'm all for it. I know plenty of countries where such unnecessary and unfounded attempts at publicity and attention are illegal, including my own home country. Saying he's a gay clown is pretty much fake news. Everybody hates fake news.
- kafkaesq 10y agoEverybody hates fake news. Well there's this also thing known as "satire", you know.
- RightMillennial 10y agoActual satire is one thing, but can a childish insult such as calling someone a "gay clown" really be classified as satire?
- nothrabannosir 10y agoI don't know how else to put this, but: yes. Yes it can.
- aarpmcgee 10y agoscares me that people on this forum, of all places, do not understand this extremely salient point.
- chirau 10y agoJust as I expected, I'm downvoted into oblivion. Anyway, maybe in the US there are no limits to satire, but I am sure most of the rest of the world has limits to satire. Ridiculing the premier of a nation in such a manner does not in any way aid to the strength of face of that nation to the rest of the world. Just look at how the ridiculousness of the Trump satire makes a joke out of the US system. Just saying... More downvotes in 3, 2, 1 .... ALSO, TO YOUR POINT: Who is the judge of what is satire and what is fake news? If Donald Trump called Obama an illegal immigrant today, or better still a wiretapper, is that satire or false accusation? Could he possibly eventually defend himself saying it was satire, his own type albeit? This whole satire thing is a slippery slope. It must have limits.
- edko 10y agoThey would be surprised to know what "putín" means in the slang of many Spanish-speaking countries.
- booleandilemma 10y agoThe Streisand Effect is going to hit this hard.
- eatitraw 10y agoTBH, so far I haven't seen a single instance of this picture shared after it became illegal.
- deepsun 10y agoSo what? No one in Russia will start drawing gay-putins, of the fear being subject to compulsory psychiatric treatment. And no one outside Russia is going to draw it because they don't care.
- dragonwriter 10y agoGIS for "gay Putin" suggest that plenty have already been drawn, and not all of them seem to be likely Russian in origin. I kind of suspect that will continue, if not accelerate.
- pipio21 10y agoI don't know how insulting someone, specially if it is the president of the country should be totally ok. Freedom of expression should end when the right of others to be respected starts. It is not ok in most of the countries of the world. Certainly in the US when I was living there it was not ok to insult the President, note the president with capitals because for Americans there is only one president in the world and it is theirs. The President was a demi God, like the founding fathers, you better behave or else. Probably this has changed with Trump and the WaPo, NewYorkTimes, The Economist and BBC all day trying to shoot him down. I was a long time Putin critic but now after so long non sequitur, ab hominem, argumentum ad passiones Westerm Media coverage trying to create a new cold(or hot) war, I am starting to defend him. Those newspapers used to be serious but they are taking the way of Reddit(that used to be as serious as HN). They are blinded by personal hate and becoming more and more war propaganda.
- samsonradu 10y agoWhy has this been downvoted?
- Neliquat 10y agoBecause it is halariously misinformed and not deserving of the respect he thinks we all should have. It is quite ironic really.
- Archio 10y agoIs this satire itself? >Freedom of expression should end when the right of others to be respected starts. "Be respected" is such a vague catch-all term to incorporate into legislation. What happens when some action you take is deemed "disrespectful" towards a political figure or other person? >Certainly in the US when I was living there it was not ok to insult the President This makes zero sense, unless you lived in extraordinarily isolating circumstances. Americans can, do, always have "insulted" the president, whether in discussion or blogs or opinion pieces or graphics, all the freaking time. >Probably this has changed with Trump and the WaPo, NewYorkTimes, The Economist and BBC all day trying to shoot him down. You are woefully misinformed. Plenty of liberals "insulted" George W. Bush during the 2000-2008 tenure, and plenty of conservatives "insulted" Barack Obama during his. To claim otherwise is simply ridiculous. Do Americans disagree? Of course. Do we fight about stuff? All the time. Do we insult each other and write long prose about how the other guy has got it all wrong? Every day. And sometimes it sucks. But the freedom to do all that is what matters.
- sitkack 10y agoIronic, the list of banned images is hosted on http://minjust.ru/ru/node/243787 http://minjust.ru/ru/node/243787
- gspetr 10y agoThings are getting worse every day here, consider these: http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-activist-convicted-reposting-repost-absurd-extremism-semenov/28375569.html http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-activist-convicted-reposting-r... http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-supreme-court-review-conviction-video-repost/28338293.html http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-supreme-court-review-convictio...