15 ms·
Russia enacts 'draconian' law for bloggers and online media
- higherpurpose 12y agoDidn't Dianne Feinstein try something similar against bloggers, only that instead of forcing them to register so they aren't anonymous, she wanted to completely exclude them from any sort of 1st amendment protection against the government? https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130807/13153224102/sen-feinstein-during-shield-law-debate-real-journalists-draw-salaries.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130807/13153224102/sen-f...
- tomjen3 12y agoAs cynical as I am about SCOTUS even they would have struck down that law.
- neoeldex 12y agoRussia has always tried to control media, Putin (and comrades) launch conspiracies, and twist stories to fit their bill. Some examples are the 'failure' of the olympic games opening (they aired the rehearsal). And the airplane MH17 appearantly was shot down by the Ukrainian government, in a grand masterplan to make holland and asia turn agains Russia. I don't think this will ever change until the citizens rize and overthrow the government.
- grepz 12y agoThere where too many bloody revolutions in russian history. And looking at Egypt, Syria, Ukraine, Lybia and many other countries after the revolution epidemia theres not much russians who thinks that overthrowing the government is a good idea. Even amongst those russians who think that mr Putin is a bad choice.
- adamnemecek 12y agoApparently, Russian shills discovered HN.
- grepz 12y agoI am reading HN for over 1.5 years, not that much, but still. Yes, i've registered account only few hours ago when I understood that by upvoting the article I can save it in my account, so no need for bookmarking anymore. It is sad that you jump to conclusions so fast.
- adamnemecek 12y agoIs it sad? Blindly supporting a pseudo-fascist regime seems sadder.
- grepz 12y agoI am not supporting Putin and co. I don't like many things happening at the moment in my country. But if you put revolution on a scale - no thank you.
- omonra 12y agoThe fact that you put Syria and Ukraine in the same sentence when describing 'revolutions' shows that you're fairly brain-washed. If not by Channel 1 - then by the paid bloggers that dominate Livejournal top pos list these days.
- pjc50 12y agoNot everyone who disagrees with you on international politics is brainwashed. Edit: no, really, it is possible for someone to reach different conclusions from you without being "brainwashed", paid, deluded, or a sockpuppet. People think differently about the world and are operating from different sets of knowledge and beliefs. And different levels of cynicism about international power politics.
- elementai 12y agoOr, this wont change until society evolves.
- watwut 12y agoRevolutions are bloody mess and do not usually bring in democracy. Quite the opposite. Plus, they tend to be successful only when overthrowing already weak government. The ease with which some throw around rizing citizens and overthrown governments is mind boggling.
- sambeau 12y agoThis is a sweeping generalisation. While I'd agree that revolutions are often a bloody mess there are a number of examples in recent history where that is not the case. (e.g. The Velvet Revolution[1]) France, UK & the USA all also had bloody revolutions that resulted in democracy (or at least the widely understood view of what democracy is). [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution
- anigbrowl 12y agoTen years after the French revolution the country was governed by Napoleon, who seized power in a coup d'etat...although he turned out to be substantially more liberal than the revolutionists.
- pjc50 12y agosubstantially more liberal than the revolutionists [citation needed] - or at least an explanation of what you mean by "liberal" here.
- mpyne 12y agoI'm presuming that saying "a fig for the nation" wouldn't have necessarily sent you to the guillotine under Napoleon, as compared to the Jacobins shortly before him.
- anigbrowl 12y agoAbolished feudalism, supported religious liberty, established the Code Napoleon, promoting jury trials etc. He was dictatorial but in my view governed enormously more fairly than the Jacobin mob that took over France after the revolution and instituted the Terror.
- ASneakyFox 12y ago"Draconian"? The us almost went this way a couple years ago with sopa.
- dspillett 12y agoAnd still might later as there are bills/amendments in motion that could if enacted and enforced result in the same level of control/monitoring/etc. The fact that the US nearly did something (and might manage to by the back door at some point soon) does not affect whether that something is considered draconian. It just means that the US nearly wrote into law something that many consider draconian.
- ivan_gammel 12y agoSOPA is not even close to this law in terms of the damage to the liberties.
- ASneakyFox 12y agoThe purpose of sopa was to censor websites from Americans. Same law same damage.
- dinkumthinkum 12y agoThat wasn't really the purpose of it, though the purpose may be just as bad, if not worse.
- scrollaway 12y agoAnd SOPA wasn't Draconian?
- jrockway 12y agoSOPA was a crazy bill floated by a few crazy politicians. It did not pass. This, as I understand it, is now law.
- PJDK 12y agoYeah, and I remember the whole internet being up in arms about it and getting it thrown out. Doesn't Russia deserve the same support?
- Grue3 12y agoCue Putin apologists appearing out of the blue with their false equivalencies. Every time, like clockwork.
- BugBrother 12y agoAt least on this web site they need to work to have an old account, so your comment won't be at -10 quickly. Edit: Here is a business idea to get round the voting problem by paying money from China, Russia, Microsoft (they stopped after the court cases?) and other astroturfers. A browser plugin you install where you configure the bank account and web sites you have accounts on. The plugin votes for you and a bit of money is put into your bank account. You could instead work on detectors and honey pot comments (to detect these users), before HN et al are destroyed. Edit 2: It should be possible to hide the voting plugins better by voting up comments on sham accounts, which then are used for down voting. I see a whole new application for data mining to detect this. :-(
- go13 12y agoIt is interesting, that as an argument of moral right to restrict basic civil rights or to start war in Ukraine or other shit, Putin's dolls use a thesis that the US or other countries did something similar like SOPA, war in Iraq, Guantanamo or shutting down of different protests. Usually these guys (Putin's apologist not major players) don't know much details about the subject (as well as most other people/all of us) but they use these arguments to justify crimes of Putin's regime. It is like to justify killing of innocent people in the USSR because Nazi Germany did this too. Disclaimer: i don't compare the US or other countries with Nazi Germany but used this example as a hyperbole to show the issue.
- BugBrother 12y agoThe really funny part is that they use the same type of argument in other languages in other part of the world. Not "Your country also did something almost similar in other circumstances". But "A third party did something almost similar in other circumstances". As I've written multiple times in Swedish -- you must update your argument templates for the local environment!
- trurl123 12y agoI am a blogger in Russia and I don't see any problems with it. This is soft law that cannot be named 'draconian'.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- lotsofmangos 12y agoWhich blog do you write?
- imaginenore 12y agoTry writing anything anti-Putin, and promote your blog. You will quickly discover how "soft" it is. That's what that law was created for, to control the opposition. And more of that is coming.
- photorized 12y agohttp://rupolitics.blogspot.com/2014/01/blog-post_17.html http://rupolitics.blogspot.com/2014/01/blog-post_17.html This is your blog, correct? Then I understand why you wouldn't see any problem with this new law.
- kolev 12y agoPeople always blow things out of proportion when it comes to Russia. If journos need to register, so should bloggers to make things fair.
- scottlocklin 12y agoCrap, Yandex ain't FSB? Looks like I'll have to rethink my idea of switching to them for NSA-proof email. And yes, I am more worried about the NSA than the FSB: I don't live in Russia.
- lotsofmangos 12y agoI'll just leave this here - http://www.institutionalinvestor.com/Article/1020662/How-Harvard-lost-Russia.html http://www.institutionalinvestor.com/Article/1020662/How-Har...
- spindritf 12y agoIt means bloggers with more than 3,000 daily readers must register with the mass media regulator, Roskomnadzor, and conform to the regulations that govern the country's larger media outlets. We have a simillar law in Poland, good old communist legacy. Formally, you need to register every media outlet with the court. Whether this applies to blogs is unclear, and it's generally not enforced. But it could be. Which is a situation bureaucrats love. I'm guessing that this is how it will work in Russia. No one will get in trouble for praising Putin on their unregistered website.
- viraptor 12y agoYes, the old system loved registration of everything. In theory you're still supposed to also notify of the new place you live at if you spend there over 3 days. In practice nobody cares.
- VMG 12y agoIn practice, all of these unenforced rules are suddenly enforced if you can't get the undesirable person on anything else. > “One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.” -- Ayn You-Know-Who
- zavulon 12y agoIt's pretty much how business law already works over there. The tax system is set up in such way that it's impossible for a business to pay all taxes and still turn in a profit. So all businesses cheat on their taxes. Majority of business deals are made with a huge cash component - if a contract is for 100K, it's written for 30K and 70K is paid in cash under the table. Until they run afoul of the government, it's considered to be ok and nobody gets in trouble. However, the minute government wants to acquire or close that business, they accuse the business of tax fraud, hit them with huge fines, close them down, throw the founders in jail, etc.
- viraptor 12y ago
- happyscrappy 12y agoI don't know why anyone would find this surprising, there is no balance of power in Russia, it is a dictatorship.
- ianstallings 12y agoThere is a worldwide crisis of truth and journalism as a whole has been usurped by those that wish to control the message. You see it in every format and in every country. You see countries acting desperately in the face of a changing world. People are getting more information from around the globe thanks to the Internet. And it scares the living crap out of them. Because the truth scares them. Be prepared for more astro-turfing, more main stream media bias, more placed articles, more leaked information, and more chaos in the message.