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Yandex CEO resigns after being targeted by EU sanctions
- throwaway4good 4y agoWhere is he living now? Israel, Malta, or Russia?
- sam_lowry_ 4y agoCyprus
- throwaway4good 4y agoI assume the part of Yandex situated in Russia is the only part still operating. So it wouldn't make much sense keep running it from Cyprus.
- bobuk 4y agoThat's not true, he's living in Israel since the war has begun.
- thriftwy 4y ago- Why did you decide to target Volozh for economic sanctions? - In fact, we did not, it was made purely algorithmically. (funny joke)
- sam_lowry_ 4y agoThe joke would be funnier if you explained that the same answer was repeatedly given by Yandex when asked why its news service shows only propaganda from a handful of state-controlled sources.
- curiousgal 4y agoWhy is that an issue? Every country is guilty of serving propoganda in one way or another.
- oleg_antonyan 4y ago- Monument to George Orwell has been unveiled in Russia - Oh really, where?! - Pretty much everywhere
- yetihehe 4y agoEvery person is guilty of using a knife. Surgeons cut people every day.
- DFHippie 4y agoA meta-observation: the logic underpinning bothsiderism or whataboutism, correct or incorrect, is that everyone is equally evil and there is no sincere goodness, so any attempt to punish a particular evil is itself evil and insincere. By its own logic it can't say that the action it criticizes is wrong -- its own criticism can't be sincere -- but it justifies opposing or at least not supporting the action. The world is just funhouse mirrors. Moral judgment is impossible.
- synu 4y agoIt’s like when people say there’s no such thing as altruism, and everyone will cheat, steal, or worse given the opportunity - they are telling you a lot more about themselves personally than they realise.
- einpoklum 4y ago> so any attempt to punish a particular evil it itself evil and insincere. For there to be punishment, there needs to be sovereignty or control over the punished. To legitimize punishment, you must presuppose that the punishing party has legitimately attained the power to punish; or, which is worse, entirely fail to perceive the existence of a punishing party and think of it as some sort of abstract, background, universal, authority.
- langsoul-com 4y agoI don't believe that's a fair point. Google takes down requests if the us gov asks them to, or Bing. Baidu can only show Chinese gov approved messages. They are all at the mercy of the controlling government.
- watwut 4y agoThat is not fair analogy in the slightest.
- Pr0Ger 4y agoYes, all of them comply to local laws. But point is Yandex repeatedly denied all accusation of working with government by saying "No, we didn't filter news, it's our algorithms decided this topic from top1 twitter trend is not important at all" Turns out their "algorithms" was "where source in state_approved_media"
- bobuk 4y agoJust for clarification: it's illegal to build news aggregator in Russia if you use any sources that is not certified by Russian government. So technically you're right, "source is state_approved_media", and pretty the same for all Russian news aggregation services.
- MomoXenosaga 4y agoFascinating, we are back in the USSR. Why does Putin think it will work this time?
- thriftwy 4y agoCongratulations for ruining a timeless joke and turning it into propaganda piece.
- noncoml 4y agoNo offense but as a rule of thumb if you have to explain to the reader that what they just read was a “(funny joke)”, then probably it’s not that funny :)
- sam_lowry_ 4y agoThe joke is clear to whoever is following Russian political news.
- noncoml 4y agoIn which case “(funny joke)” was redundant…
- DonHopkins 4y agoQ: How many GRU agents does it take to push a dissident down a stairwell? A: None. He just slipped.
- thriftwy 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nix23 4y agoWell it's kind of funny because you can replace GRU with CIA and stairwell with window, and it still matches.
- DonHopkins 4y ago
- thriftwy 4y agoI am the one who posted it.
- DonHopkins 4y ago
- thriftwy 4y ago
- DonHopkins 4y ago
- unsignednoop 4y agoThis is actually the second time this has happened. Guess the EU really hates Yandex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigran_Khudaverdyan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigran_Khudaverdyan
- bsnal 4y agoInstead of hating Yandex, Google, etc they should focus on making the necessary changes so Europe can have their own Google.
- qwerty456127 4y agoWhy would the world need another Google, European or whatever? I believe we don't need changes to make a new Google possible, we need changes to promote competition of many (much smaller) search engines, service/content aggregators, email services etc.
- dgellow 4y agoThe EU doesn’t hate Russian companies. It is believed that Yandex manipulate their search result in a way to support Putin propaganda. You can read the EU decision if you want to understand their reasoning, it’s all public in their journal of records.
- severino 4y agoWell, the EU mandated that search engines manipulate their search results too. So I guess it's indeed that they dislike Yandex/Russia, not that they dislike biased search results.
- DandyDev 4y agoSources for this claim?
- jdasdf 4y agoWould the notice they sent to google suffice? https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/26927483# https://www.lumendatabase.org/notices/26927483# >From: <@ec.europa.eu> >Date: Fri, Mar 4, 2022, 6:57 PM >Subject: Ukraine >Dear Signatories, >I am sending you the below email on behalf of [redacted], in order to provide clarifications related to the sanctions, following up on questions received. (...) >Search engines such as Google are designed to index results containing any possible content; they index websites throughout the world; the information is indexed by their ‘web crawlers’ or robots, that is to say, computer programmes used to locate and sweep up the content of web pages methodically and automatically (see by analogy judgment of the ECJ in Google Spain, C‑131/12, para. 43). The activity of search engines plays a decisive role in the overall dissemination of content in that it renders the latter accessible to any internet user making a search on the basis of the content indication or related terms, including to internet users who otherwise would not have found the web page on which that content is published (see by analogy judgment of the ECJ in Google Spain, C‑131/12, para. 36). Consequently, if search engines such as Google did not delist RT and Sputnik, they would facilitate the public’s access to the content of RT and Sputnik, or contribute to such access. >It follows from the foregoing that by virtue of the Regulation, providers of Internet search services must make sure that i) any link to the Internet sites of RT and Sputnik and ii) any content of RT and Sputnik, including short textual descriptions, visual elements and links to the corresponding websites do not appear in the search results delivered to users located in the EU. Social media
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tazjin 4y agoIt feels like a good moment to note that the previous Yandex CEO resigned and moved to Israel, citing that she "can not live in a country that is at war with its neighbours".
- throwaway4good 4y agoRussians always had a great sense of humour ...
- bobuk 4y agoYou've meant ex-CEO of Yandex Russia, i.e. subsidiary of Yandex N.V. But yeah, both of them now in Israel, trying to build a new company without Russian money. And it will be problematic because of sanctions now.
- throwaway4good 4y agoIt is kinda funny how Israel has not joined sanctions against Russia plus has provided exile for these Russian business people who have been pushed out of Europe and the US.
- jhugo 4y agoThe goal of the sanction is to punish the regime, not arbitrarily punish all Russian individuals. Sanctions directed at individuals are supposed to motivate them to not support the regime. If intelligent, capable leaders leave Russia and start businesses elsewhere (and even more so if they help other intelligent, capable Russians leave to work for them), the sanctions have worked as intended. If those businesses are started in Israel and not in EU or US then that's Israel's gain and EU/US's loss.
- patrakov 4y agoWell - right now, the sanctions punish those who emigrated (e.g. me). I had trouble opening even a personal bank account in the Philippines, allegedly "because of EU sanctions" (c'mon, when did the Philippines join the EU?), will retry in a different bank. Inability to open a bank account is a major obstacle for starting a business.
- ddtaylor 4y agoWithout getting involved in the RU war politics, Yandex does one thing that most other search engines refuse to do: search for hashes. If you take a hash and put it into Google, Bing, etc. they basically refuse to search for it unless it's a "well known" hash.
- Simon_O_Rourke 4y agoI can sort of understand, like why would anyone want to sell advertising off the back of hash searches?
- ddtaylor 4y agoI don't think search engines should only be providing features that boost advertising revenue.
- jhugo 4y agoWhat motivation would they have for providing other features?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- garbagetime 4y agoProviding a good service -> People using the service -> Increased revenue
- bobuk 4y agoDisclosure: I've worked for Yandex as deputy CTO till 2015, and one of the reasons i've left the company was increased pressure from Russian government. Since then I have lived in Ukraine, now in Kyiv. We're nervously joking about "ID of Good Russian" inside the Russian community. It's like "somebody from Russia who proves he/she is against Putin's regime." At least a third of them are now in Israel, trying to do something to stop this war. Arkady, who was the founder and CEO of Yandex since the beginning for me, is one of these "good Russians." He's helping to run from Russia for many people who's against the war now, trying to build a startup-asylium for russians with jewish roots in Tel-Aviv. I do not believe that Russia as a country will change soon, so one of the best ways to accelerate the process is to help intelligent people to leave the country, as Arkady does. Honestly, I think everybody at Yandex, including me is guilty because, indirectly, we helped to build this regime. It is not fair to penalty for Volozh this hard. We all have to be penalized somehow, but give us a chance to fix at least something.
- christophilus 4y agoI wouldn’t feel too guilty. It’s hard to leave friends and family and culture and work and stability behind. I’ve kept my head down and continued to work in the US despite some terrible presidents and plenty of wars and other governmental actions that I completely disagreed with. Do I feel guilty for that? No. I didn’t support it. I didn’t start it. I couldn’t stop it. Leaving would have only destabilized my family and robbed my children of knowing their grandparents. This isn’t whataboutism. I’m not trying to say Russia is equivalent to the US, etc, etc. But I think it’s unjust how much guilt and responsibility we put on the shoulders of the average citizen who is just trying to live.
- lostmsu 4y agoI think the point was exactly that the author of the parent comment is not just an average citizen. As you grow, you tend to (IMHO, rightly) feel more and more responsibility for people around you.
- trevyn 4y agoIt’s not about feelings of guilt, it’s about choosing complicity. Sometimes that’s a perfectly rational choice, but when you are knowingly complicit with an abuser, there is always some kind of cosmic price to pay. It’s not a threat of arbitrary moral punishment, it’s a warning about real long-term consequences.
- xpl 4y agoNot fair. The guy in fact did a great job by NOT letting the Russian government nationalize Yandex (and they considered to do it), so it is up to this day a company with no govt. involvement — which is almost impossible for a business of this scale in Russia. But yeah, there is a price to it — Yandex had to make a deal that it does not shut down its infamous news aggregator with cherry-picked pro-Kremlin sources (the cherry-picking is required by the Russian regulations in case you didn't know) — despite many ppl in the company wanted to shut it down, as it damages the company's brand so much. And now since Yandex announced that it has finally managed to get rid of that toxic asset (by selling it) — I don't know for what EU is really punishing him? How that helps ending the war? It has the exact opposite effect. It would be now significantly harder for him to start up new legit businesses outside of Russia, so basically it created complications in moving value out of Russian economy. It looks like a clear win for Russia and a clear loss for the West. The same, by the way, applies to all Russian people that got "sanctioned" by not giving visas to them, by refusing to open bank accounts, etc. That only keeps brains and money inside of Russia, thus helping the evil regime thrive! Just think about it.