5 ms·

Russian Wikipedia Goes on Strike Over Censorship Plans

93 points by dchest 14y ago

xentronium 14y ago
I don't believe this will matter. United Russia, pocket party of the current government & president, has all the power to approve or reject any proposed bill. Unfortunately, no amount of public opinion has any effect on them.
- blots 14y ago
  Unfortunately, the public is being continuously brainwashed by the state controlled media to share their opinion.
  - simias 14y ago
    "brainwashed by the state controlled media to share their opinion"? What do you mean? Or did you mean "not to share their opinion"?
    - Kliment 14y ago
      I expect "to share their [the media's] opinion" as opposed to "to share their [the citizens'] opinion".
      - blots 14y ago
        Yes, "to share the media's/state's opinion", forgive my bad english.
- mtgx 14y ago
  I wouldn't say "no amount", but it's clear that Russia as a whole is not ready to get rid of Putin yet. So 100k, 200k and maybe even 500k people protesting against him probably won't have much effect, unless it's millions of them, or the vast majority of them actually votes against him in the next election.
- anghyflawn 14y ago
  It will probably not matter in terms of preventing the passage of the law, but this is the sort of thing that has led to the groundswell of support for Pirate Parties elsewhere in Europe. Given the current brewing of civil-society initiatives in Russia, this can well play a non-negligible role.
- styts 14y ago
  Public opinion has effect. It's just that government-controlled media would otherwise not report such controversial laws being considered. I sincerely thank Wikipedia for bringing public attention to this issue. Now twitter is trending with #RuWikiBlackout and all major Russian news channels are reporting the blackout.
  - raquo 14y ago
    Come on. The media will report about this law and the vast majority of the population will be thankful for the government cracking down on child pornographers. Never underestimate the bullshit absorption rate of the general population.
cabirum 14y ago
The legislation is aimed at fighting child abuse/porn websites, drug use promotion, and similar content. (it never states to block copyrighted content nor can be used to block opposition presence in the internet media). Please read the actual document before discussing it. The opposing factions overreacted and tried to distort the point of legislation by comparing it to the Great Chinese Firewall (there will be no centralized infrastructure to control all traffic flow). This is the same kind of "censorship" used in western countries to block TPB and others, yet it deals with really criminal and abusive content.
- barrkel 14y ago
  When the UK introduced Cleanfeed to block child porn, it was supposed to only be used for that. But when cases came up in court, ISPs could not deny that they had the capability to block individual websites, so it got repurposed to block things like TPB - which I think is wrong[1]. The fact that Western countries also misuse censorship is no excuse. All I expect that will be required is a compliant court, and further censorship may be applied once the infrastructure is in place. [1] More widespread use also works against its original motivation, because it encourages people to work around the blocks with VPNs, proxies, etc. But that's generally restricted to very motivated and half-ways technically adept people.
  - obtu 14y ago
    Just to clarify, both courts and an as yet unspecified government agency will have the power to order content removed (by site operators, web hosts, and ISPs). Looking at http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=ru.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F%D0%97%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%82_%E2%84%96_89417-6 http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&... , the criteria are open-ended (the list starts with objectionable stuff for the sake of framing the debate; the last bullet point says anything deemed unsuitable can be suppressed; links to the same content are disallowed as well). In practice I expect the motivation for this law is to crack down on political dissent, alternative candidates, and any platforms that may support them.
- anghyflawn 14y ago
dctoedt 14y ago
I hope the Russian editors don't end up in prison, or worse; that seems to be a not-uncommon fate of those who dare publicly oppose the government.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
  It's Putin, I expect they may just disappear sometime soon.

93 points by dchest 14y ago

I don't believe this will matter. United Russia, pocket party of the current government & president, has all the power to approve or reject any proposed bill. Unfortunately, no amount of public opinion has any effect on them.

blots 14y ago
Unfortunately, the public is being continuously brainwashed by the state controlled media to share their opinion.
- simias 14y ago
  "brainwashed by the state controlled media to share their opinion"? What do you mean? Or did you mean "not to share their opinion"?
  - Kliment 14y ago
    I expect "to share their [the media's] opinion" as opposed to "to share their [the citizens'] opinion".
    - blots 14y ago
      Yes, "to share the media's/state's opinion", forgive my bad english.
mtgx 14y ago
I wouldn't say "no amount", but it's clear that Russia as a whole is not ready to get rid of Putin yet. So 100k, 200k and maybe even 500k people protesting against him probably won't have much effect, unless it's millions of them, or the vast majority of them actually votes against him in the next election.
anghyflawn 14y ago
It will probably not matter in terms of preventing the passage of the law, but this is the sort of thing that has led to the groundswell of support for Pirate Parties elsewhere in Europe. Given the current brewing of civil-society initiatives in Russia, this can well play a non-negligible role.
styts 14y ago
Public opinion has effect. It's just that government-controlled media would otherwise not report such controversial laws being considered. I sincerely thank Wikipedia for bringing public attention to this issue. Now twitter is trending with #RuWikiBlackout and all major Russian news channels are reporting the blackout.
- raquo 14y ago
  Come on. The media will report about this law and the vast majority of the population will be thankful for the government cracking down on child pornographers. Never underestimate the bullshit absorption rate of the general population.

cabirum 14y ago

The legislation is aimed at fighting child abuse/porn websites, drug use promotion, and similar content. (it never states to block copyrighted content nor can be used to block opposition presence in the internet media). Please read the actual document before discussing it. The opposing factions overreacted and tried to distort the point of legislation by comparing it to the Great Chinese Firewall (there will be no centralized infrastructure to control all traffic flow). This is the same kind of "censorship" used in western countries to block TPB and others, yet it deals with really criminal and abusive content.

barrkel 14y ago
When the UK introduced Cleanfeed to block child porn, it was supposed to only be used for that. But when cases came up in court, ISPs could not deny that they had the capability to block individual websites, so it got repurposed to block things like TPB - which I think is wrong[1]. The fact that Western countries also misuse censorship is no excuse. All I expect that will be required is a compliant court, and further censorship may be applied once the infrastructure is in place. [1] More widespread use also works against its original motivation, because it encourages people to work around the blocks with VPNs, proxies, etc. But that's generally restricted to very motivated and half-ways technically adept people.
- obtu 14y ago
  Just to clarify, both courts and an as yet unspecified government agency will have the power to order content removed (by site operators, web hosts, and ISPs). Looking at http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=ru.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F%D0%97%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B5%D0%BA%D1%82_%E2%84%96_89417-6 http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&... , the criteria are open-ended (the list starts with objectionable stuff for the sake of framing the debate; the last bullet point says anything deemed unsuitable can be suppressed; links to the same content are disallowed as well). In practice I expect the motivation for this law is to crack down on political dissent, alternative candidates, and any platforms that may support them.
anghyflawn 14y ago

dctoedt 14y ago

I hope the Russian editors don't end up in prison, or worse; that seems to be a not-uncommon fate of those who dare publicly oppose the government.

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
It's Putin, I expect they may just disappear sometime soon.