Russia Clamps Down On Bloggers, Online Profanity

[Shadefyre]

The only real difference I'm seeing currently between what happened with the initial rise of Communism and the formation of the Soviet Union in Russia and what's happening now is that now there are people in Russia who've lived through the time when they were a fascist dictatorship. Then they saw it fall, and probably aren't going to just sit idly by while a sleazy enforcer/spy-turned-politician tries to drag the country back to that time.

Well, that and the whole killing the long standing monarchy thing.

 

[Racecarlock]

Dear god, this guy is in charge of nukes.

That's comforting.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

Putin does seem intent on dragging Russia back several decades, and he doesn't care if he takes the rest of the world with him. This is getting more than a little distressing now. I'm still upset over the whole Ukraine thing. I wonder what it will take for someone to finally stand up and say, "Enough."

 

[Dalisclock]

Anyone taking bets on when they rename the country back to the USSR? Because I have a feeling it's not going to be long now.

 

[Brian Tams]

Here's a great example of violation of free speech, if anyone was still confused.

 

[Elvis Starburst]

Here we see a country walking backwards from evolving with the world around it. And then there's the Ukraine thing. Oh boy... Putin, what are ya doing, man?

 

[Andy Chalk]

Why must everything be either 1984 style government control or laiz-affair he-with-the-largest-pockets dominance? Can't we strive for a system of balance and oversight?

We have that now. Libelous statements can be pursued in civil court. It's far from a perfect system, but I'd say it's a lot better than some government agency monitoring what we say to ensure that we don't get out of line. (Or say "fuck.")

 

[otakon17]

Anyone taking bets on when they rename the country back to the USSR? Because I have a feeling it's not going to be long now.

Welp, haven't seen it yet and I feel this is VERY relevant to the current topic:

I swear this sounds like something from around 60 years ago.

 

[Strazdas]

and then people laugh when i tell them its de facto dictatorship there.

well, i just hope most bloggers will simply use routing services to hide their IPs and continue being anonymous, making this a complete failure.

 

[DirgeNovak]

This is going to hurt. Blogging is extremely popular in Russia, and a vast majority of bloggers are anonymous (and anti-Putin, obviously). And considering most ISPs and even the most popular blogging platform in the country belong to corporations very close to the Yedinaya Rassiya party, it's going to be next to impossible to fight.
Russian blogging is going to die.

I almost wish this happened before I wrote my term paper on the subject last year. It would have made it far more interesting

 

[JarinArenos]

Actually, he just made a comment on a Danish controversy, four days ago or so. Basically the company that handles credit card and billing information in the country leaked information to a magazine. That leak turned out to be a pastime of the employees who had fun checking the history of whomever they wanted to have information about, whenever they wanted.

Ah, missed that one entirely. Good to know.

 

[IceStar100]

i have a feeling next week we are going to be looking at some news regarding putin invading afganistan to sort out some "unfinished business"

Is it sad I kind of hope so. We as the USA could use some of the heat pulled off us. We have a shit ton of issues right now.

 

[Veylon]

Here we see a country walking backwards from evolving with the world around it. And then there's the Ukraine thing. Oh boy... Putin, what are ya doing, man?

He's fixing what went wrong in the 90's. His supporters are those who lost what little security they had when the USSR collapsed and state assets were awarded to a pack of untouchable moguls. He operates on nostalgia for when the world feared and respected Russian might.

As for Ukraine... Remember back during the Bush administration when one of the insiders made a crack about the U.S. needing throw some crappy third-world countries against the wall to show everyone who's boss? That's Putin's strategy in a nutshell. It's a foolish, self-destructive strategy for a country, but it helps keep the ruling elite in power.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Why must everything be either 1984 style government control or laiz-affair he-with-the-largest-pockets dominance? Can't we strive for a system of balance and oversight?

We have that now. Libelous statements can be pursued in civil court. It's far from a perfect system, but I'd say it's a lot better than some government agency monitoring what we say to ensure that we don't get out of line. (Or say "fuck.")

Okay, first of all, civil court processes are inherently biased towards plaintiffs with the largest wallets. Even if the case is open and shut, the judiciary never has a problem granting adjournments and appeals, which drag proceedings on endlessly while the legal bills rack up. That alone is enough to dissuade many people from taking action.

Secondly, libel is only one problem. Half the time media people with vested interests are capable of continually making false or misleading statements that don't slander any particular body and aren't covered by libel law. There's no effective legal recourse under the Australian system, for instance, to punish people who continually use factual errors to push a misleading agenda. It's all well and good to leave it to the free press to provide counter arguments, but again, this tends to lose out in favour of the person with the largest wallet being able to control public opinion. It happens all the time in debate on climate change, economics, immigration, etc.

The answer is not empowering a government agency to monitor everyone's communication, I agree. But the present solution of leaving it to be resolved within public debate and the courts is not working. A possible solution would be giving a government agency the ability to take restrictive measures if complaints from the public are upheld, but every time that gets proposed, we get "Stalinism" and "Orwellian" rammed down our ears before anyone can even discuss how it would operate.

 

[AntiChri5]

Man caring so much about profanity just seems kinda juvenile to me now. I get not liking it but if you think it needs to be eradicated from the language and you dedicate yourself as a volunteer watchdog you have a problem.

They're words. If I want to talk about a woman's reproductive organs does it really matter if I call it a vagina or a ****? No. Everyone knows what I'm talking about. Cracking down on the word **** while letting me say any other synonym for it is just arbitrary silliness. It's policing how I say rather than the content.

And yes I know **** can be used as a generic insult in other contexts, it doesn't diminish my point.

Also

It's almost enough to make you suspect that this is really about censoring political opinions, not taking down a few naughty words.

 

[Vegosiux]

-snip-

Has to be the most sensible post in the thread. My hat's off to you, sir.

As for my opinion on the matter? It's less about cracking down on bloggers, more about just making it official. I mean, this kind of shit's been going on over there already, not like Putin "needs" such a law.

But seriously, he's been spending so many admin points lately that he might find himself short of them once his revolt risk goes up and he needs to boost stability.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

i have a feeling next week we are going to be looking at some news regarding putin invading afganistan to sort out some "unfinished business"

Is it sad I kind of hope so. We as the USA could use some of the heat pulled off us. We have a shit ton of issues right now.

id be more worried about the afgans, being the ball in a superpower ping pong match

 

[Nikolaz72]

Did Putin go ahead and rebuilt the Berlin Wall when nobody was looking? Because I've got the feeling that Putin really wants the Soviet Union back.

The less reported fact is that the 'Bloggers Law' is really only part of a larger whole. A crapload of Childrens Books deemed 'Unpatriotic' (Like supporting the Freedom of Speech or two Boys living together even if they aren't in a relationship) are getting outright banned. Russian parents are somewhat up in arms about it.

Only -Government approved- Childrens reading material will be sold.