Terrifying.
That is really quite offensive. We have a culture of protest and resistance. What we have at the moment is a paradise of easy living. Despite the depressing lie of what the media will give you with "food banks and poverty" the standard of living for most Britons is really quite good, much better than the 1980s which saw major public political unrest.
People won't take to the streets for internet privacy or other such soft battles you can think of. The political classes will chatter about whatever games they play with each other but people really don't care about such issues.
UPD: I should probably have mentioned that I'm from Russia.
Sure, some assertions of slippery slopes are fallacious, but others could not be more real.
And UK has already put everything they need in place - next thing on the list, invade Ireland :-)
Let's say you're in Russia and instead of configuring a proxy you simply go to eff.org or nyt.com or columbia.edu and you go to a special page there that then lets you go to all the sites that are censored in that country. The net result is that that country would then need to censor an ever growing list of sites to the extent that they either give up or blackhole the entire country. You could design a system that had distributed rate limiting, crowd sourced censorship lists and all you would have to do is drop some javascript lib in your site and some proxy on your backend. Ya, it's some work, but hey, it's time for the free world to put its money where its mouth is.
I am not convinced that pushing Putin to exercise his dictatorial abilities is a good idea when his approval ratings among the general population are so high. I mean, if people already hated him, that might have pushed them over the edge. But as it stands now, general population is more likely to rationalize blocking than admit that Putin is evil.
That's the point: pressure. Outside sites willing to expose themselves to an 'iron curtain' is a true form of solidarity in this era where a world is more connected. Push-back is exactly how successful, peaceful movements are waged.
The hope is this time it wouldn't take that long. However there should be reasons to change the society faster - and that requires efforts.
Needless to say, several organizations would be willing to maintain updated blocked (accepted) lists. The important part is not allowing a proxy to be abstracted from the main site; otherwise, isolated javascript would be the blocking target, which would defeat the effects ever being noticed.
Not even sure why they bothered to block Kasparov. I have yet to talk to someone who actually lives in Russia and cares about what he has to say.
While not a good move, it doesn't quite live up to the EFF headline.
This is the official site that lists all blocked sites, but it looks like you have to know what you are looking for: http://eais.rkn.gov.ru/. Note, I haven't actually been able to get it to return any queries on the above sites...
http://antizapret.info/ --- list
* ej.ru (assortment of articles by opposition writers)
* kasparov.ru (chess grandmaster and one of the opposition leaders)
* navalny.livejournal.com (possibly most prominent opposition leader as of late; mayor of Moscow candidate in 2013 mayoral election)
* grani.ru (opposition newspaper)
I'd have to agree with said elsewhere in the comments that an average Russian will likely not notice those sites virtual demise. They're not much known or popular outside of a tight opposition camp.
Echo of Moscow is, however, a very popular radio station. Banning their site is likely to cause a little shit storm. It is not banned though and working just fine. What happened is they hosted their own Navalny's blog [2] and this particular URL was banned. However, the banning system is IP based, so along with it all the site would have been blocked. The site admins quickly took down the blog and the ban was lifted.
Considered -- no, painted -- yes, of course. You can't be an opposition leader, and don't be the target of smear campaign by Kremlin.
As for myself, I do not see a viable (European-grade) democratic movement in Russia that I'd be willing to give my support (I think Yabloko was/is the closest). At the same time, I do not feel oppressed or living under tyranny here :)
Fun fact: Navalny, originally a member of Yabloko, was expelled from the party for nationalist rhetoric back in 00s.
They're like clock with no mechanism. Such clock can even occasionally be right, but it doesn't go.
He is. Just as Echo and the rest of our liberal fifth column.
As a Russian citizen, I'm also very interested what Internet Hero Edward Snowden thinks about this.
we have good teachers and are learning (from west obviously)
1. Lenta.ru, one of the biggest Russian news websites (600 thousand visitors daily) mentioned in the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenta.ru Although Wikipedia says "39 employees out of the total 84 lost their jobs" it is known that they were not fired but were leaving the company together with fired Editor-in-Chief Galina Timchenko as an act against censorship. Some links:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26543464
http://en.rsf.org/russia-lenta-ru-website-is-latest-13-03-20...
http://blogs.wsj.com/emergingeurope/2014/03/12/russian-news-...
2. And this is what happened with TV Rain news channel. It will be closed soon most probably.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/04/russian-news-ch...
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2014/02/asking...
3. Echo Moskvy. "The head of one of Russia's few remaining independent broadcasters, Ekho Moskvy, has been dismissed and replaced by an editor from state media.", "Its editor said it was an "unjust" and "totally political decision" aimed at changing editorial policy."
http://www.rferl.org/content/gazprom_wants_to_dismiss_radio_...
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26239715
4. The New Times started a paid subscription to protect itself from censorship a few months ago. This is the only link, in Russian, couldn't find any sources in English: http://www.newtimes.ru/obrashenie-avtora/
Japan (Empire of the Rising Sun), Nazi Germany, Maoism (and the following Cultural Revolution), in America: Red Scare (age of McCarthyism, ending as a consequence of JMc.'s untimely death), the Red Peril (the predecessor of the Red Scare) -- the list goes on. The efficacy of those at the top to wield their power would have been far less without propaganda. Their ability to acquire it -- even less still.
Consider current-day North Korea, Venezuela, or numerous Middle-Eastern countries (which regulate education as well as the internet); consider the intellectually subdued population of China and the unconscionable acts which have been silently taking place in Tibet (and elsewhere) behind the Great Firewall. All of these nations are suffering from handicapped/censored versions of the internet -- while simultaneously being subjected to propaganda.
Russia can now officially be added to that club. I can't help but extrapolate -- applying this trend to other nations.
An Uncensored and Open Internet* is crucial to the subversion of tyrannical governments' propaganda efforts.
* - (I prefer this to "Free and Open" because 'free' is so easily misunderstood by baby boomers)
~ ~
We are witnessing (again [0]) a complete lack of attempted narrative on the part of the US/UK mainstream press. There isn't the slightest reason to not give this story ample coverage -- it is anti-Putin/Russia (which, we can all agree is the current fetish in the media), and it is absolutely newsworthy -- even by their standards (they covered when the Russia Today anchors quit and spoke-out). SO WHAT GIVES? This is the dereliction of duty in "journalism." Shame. And it is greatly affecting the movement for an Uncensored and Open Internet.
"Coverage" is different from "being reported." This needs to reach baby boomers in the form of a headline. They don't appreciate the internet because they can't connect the dots.
I've snapshoted cnn.com, foxnews.com, msnbc.com, bbc.com - at 8:51pm CST at web.archive.org . I'm the crackpot that believes there are ulterior motives in this pattern of institutional ignorance/behavior.
~ ~
When it comes to the marketing of high stakes legislation - know that the true motives are often-times blended with an actual public desire, with the bill being a means to another end entirely. As mike_esspe points out: this action being taken is through the passage of Russia's "anti-child pornography" bill. For those that missed it, here's what happening in the UK on the same front of misdirection. [0]
If you care about making a difference, beyond "liking" and "upvoting" -- I highly recommend (as did Aaron Swartz) reading "The Power Broker," and you will have a greater appreciation of the forces at play and how opaque the processes which deliver and execute the policies of governance really are.
[0] - A recent example of the mainstream press giving essentially no coverage came with GHCQ webcam revelations: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7315743 The loose connection between the (casually addressed) problems of pictures obtained of minors' nudity in the webcam program and the governments' attempts to censor the internet on the back of the serious child pornography issue is worth noting, for its hypocrisy.
[1] - http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1zhd6i/david_came... ~~
For the inevitable Godwin's Law comebacks. People too often focus on Hitler's 1936-39 rise to global prominence: what is often overlooked is the unabated role of the party's propaganda-machine from 1921 to 1932 to gain popular support and 1932 to ~1936 to brainwash the remaining populace.
The role of the Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian media in the wars following the break up of Yugoslavia[1].
The role of state controlled radio and TV in the Rwandan genocide[2][3]. To quote from [2]:
From October 1993 to late 1994, RTLM was used by Hutu leaders to advance an extremist Hutu message and anti-Tutsi disinformation, spreading fear of a Tutsi genocide against Hutu, identifying specific Tutsi targets or areas where they could be found, and encouraging the progress of the genocide. In April 1994, Radio Rwanda began to advance a similar message, speaking for the national authorities, issuing directives on how and where to kill Tutsis, and congratulating those who had already taken part.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Role_of_the_media_in_the_Yugosl...
[2] http://migs.concordia.ca/links/RwandaRadioTranscripts.htm
I second your sentiment completely, and knowledge is indeed the path to freedom. The journey itself however, is fraught with malignant powers hell bent upon crushing us at every step. Ukraine is a tragic example in a long list of historic casualties, caught in the eternal fight for freedom against powerful tyrants.
Don't be fooled, power isnt about crushing, not all all, it's about developing large adoring flocks of people that have seen the way, and don't need to hear another word. You don't crush your troops. You mold them into Super fans, adoring acolytes.
True propaganda entices, it never ever crushes.
On "The Power Broker," Swartz says:
"I cannot possibly say enough good things about this book. Go read it. Right now. Yes, I know it’s long, but trust me, you’ll wish it was longer. I think it may be simply the best nonfiction book."
[0] - https://zolabooks.com/list/aaron-swartz-reading-list/1
It's obvious. People will start drawing parallels between Russia's actions and that of the Western governments and their press. They'd rather not have folks figure out we're just as bad as the rest of 'em.
i find it particularly interesting, mainly because for the most part the population never even noticed.
we shouldn't really be so high and mighty. for all i know people over there oppose their bad practices, and over here people are defending them.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/jan/20/iran-press-tv-l...
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/06/18/246851/press-tv-is-b...
Doesn't the United States also regulate education and the Internet, and particularly the former? It seems like you're still likely to get labelled a kooky conspiracy theorist if you claim that modern Western governments actively engage in blatant propaganda campaigns, but it's considered "obvious" that other countries (either in the past or other parts of the world) do so.
Public education is administered at the county level (if you can believe it). States have a decent amount to say with regards to what schools teach; the federal government does not. This system is not great for a variety of reasons (primarily the fact that education quality varies astronomically from county to county), but it does mean that "propaganda in schools" is hard to effect from a centralized location.
Right now in Russia there are two kinds of people: those too afraid to speak or do anything, and those who get silenced. In such a situation there's no way to have a contrarian voice unless you're anonymous.
http://www.netfamilynews.org/online-id-verification-in-south...
About censorship bills brought in by dubious 'five horseman of the internet apocalypse' arguments, yes.
Honestly though, almost every nation I've lived in or have citizenship has equivalent rules (Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, China, UK). The US perhaps doesn't but it's still bullshit to hold it up as any kind of do-gooder because it would be hard to argue that its recent actions have any positive outcome for the internet (re: extralegal persecution of Wikileaks, MegaUpload, pervasive PRISM surveillance, encouragement of allies to do the same, peddling of lofty-sounding international agreements by bribery/cocercion to effect 'IP law' changes that essentially undermine funamental freedoms, domestic shackling of IANA, politicization of DNS, etc.)
After visiting it on the eve of its new government, I wonder how Tunisia is doing with enacting freedom-protecting internet legislation?
I wonder if perhaps, perversely, Germany might be doing OK in this regard?
Youre just in it and refuse to accept it. Americans too are intellectually subdued.
The USA is very good at the use of soft power, and targeted application of hard power. Our profiency at the use of soft power largely eliminates the need for hard power. Iran and China are simply not on our level when it comes to manipulation of public opinion. I believe that the illusion of an independent and oppositional media plays a large part in this.
For example, I can visit any number of violent white supremacist or radical Islamic websites at my leisure. Yes, I'm likely raising red-flags in a database somewhere, but I'm not stopped from visiting.
This is not to say that Americans are not intellectually subdued, they are, but the way in which control is exerted is markedly different.
2. Use those laws to shut down public knowledge.
3. Invade a country to see how the rest of the world responds.
4. This is the most important step. We respond with strength or we respond with diplomacy.
5. If we respond with diplomacy step 6 would be for Putin to invade another country. If we respond with force, it would lead Putin to respond with backtracking...
The choice is theirs.
I think the West has plenty of opportunities here. On the other hand, those won't come free - and I understand the hesitation. Yet again, to some - smaller - extent we have a situation, which is similar to what happened already about 80 years ago in Europe.
Russia today is ready to go to war with the West in order to keep Ukraine from joining NATO. "Russia regards this as an existential threat and will do whatever it takes to prevent it happening. (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26566452)"
The banned sites are considered enemy propaganda outfits by Kremlin.
- downloading the pluggable transports bundle: https://www.torproject.org/docs/pluggable-transports.html.en...
- and getting some bridges: https://bridges.torproject.org/
just to have all this ready in case they decide to do some more nasty stuff later on.
We've seen raw footage released, we can read live tweets about what's happening and we can even communicate with people effected via the internet. The only side that seems to conflict with what's coming out of the region is the Russian side.
I watched cellphone footage of troops with Russian equipment in Russian vehicles with Russian license plates that spoke Russian and claimed to be from Russia in Crimea, despite Russian media and government reports of there being no Russian troops there.
With the internet and mobile phones, it's really hard to get away with lies in media anymore (unless of course you censor the evidence).
That's in theory. In reality, I see a very clear bias in Russian as well as non-Russian major media outlets. And it's not just my observation, either. Have a look at this Guardian article, for example: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/10/ukraine-and-wes... The author tries to explain why this is so.
A quote: The one thing we know for sure is that we don't know what's going on. The situation is volatile and murky. But that doesn't stop western politicians jumping in feet first. We don't know exactly what forces are at play, but we still desperately want to pin our naive "goodies" and "baddies" labels on to somebody.
Russia has no opposition (in the meaning of the world) so your title won't make sense.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bea-edwards/the-us-and-austral...
Correction: Above sentence is not correct. Not all Russian language news were outlawed. Instead, only Russian TV channels were banned in Ukraine a few days ago. This has caused OSCE to express concern. See the link below.
Almost a half of Ukrainians speak Russian language. New Kiev government has banned national broadcasts in this language, effectively denying its people access to information.
When we hear the arguments that banning Russian-language press/TV in Ukraine is OK, since those are necessarily 'Putin propaganda', but banning radical sites[1] in Russia is wrong, because they are 'independent news', we can only admire the ability to maintain double standards without as much at batting an eye.
(http://www.osce.org/fom/116312)
[1] I don't necessarily agree with Russian government definition of 'extremist/radical', but their point is that above Russian sites have given their pages to neo-Nazis to call to armed struggle against the state.
In Ukraine only 5 foreign TV channels were banned -- Vesti, Russia 24, ORT (First Channel World Network), RTR Planet, and NTV World. All of them were state-sponsored mouthpieces of Russian Goebbels-style propaganda, and it's in a country invaded by Russia. No wonder that these propaganda channels of foreign aggressors were banned.
In Russia Kremlin attacks its own legitimate independent from state press and opposition leaders. Russian independent TV channels were already destroyed long before (with exception of Dozhd that was attacked only recently), but yesterday Kremlin started to broadly use one more method in its fight against freedom of press -- Internet filters. And that what EFF article is about.
These situations have very little in common, and they very bundled together only to be used in the standard "but you are lynching negroes" argument.
> I don't necessarily agree with Russian government definition of 'extremist/radical', but their point is that above Russian sites have given their pages to neo-Nazis to call to armed struggle against the state.
Eh, neo-Nazis to call to armed struggle against the state? That's just bullshit. Good example, why Russian Goebbels-style propaganda is a problem.
Thanks for confirming that 5 TV channels carrying alternative views are banned in Ukraine. That's no problem for you because you call them propaganda.
Some people disagree. A lot of Ukrainians Russian-speakers feel that their point of view is not represented in Ukrainian official media, and that Russian news provide some valuable alternative. After all, one of the first laws of new Kiev govt was an anti-Russian language law.
And then in a single breath you deny neo-Nazi issue as a bullshit. You obviously know that lenta.ru editor was fired allegedly for publishing a link to Ukrainian "Right Sector" content.
Next you of may want to deny that Svoboda and their paramilitary wing Right Sector are neo-nazis... I could refer to to European Union officials expressing concern about Svoboda's position in Kiev government, but I think my arguments will be lost on you.
Filter content by Content-language header? :)
> New Kiev government has banned national broadcasts in this language
This statement is also wrong. There is a lot of channels in Russian language in Ukraine.
Please don't think that we don't have freedoms here. We have much more freedom that you can ever imagine. As well, we don't need to be protected by the bulwark of democracy - US.
We're just fine!
Homosexuals? Why do you ask Russia about them? Go to Saudi Arabia and ask them how do they feel about that. We have our own vision of healthy society.
Murdered journalists - that's a shame, I agree. But you know what? Now it's just a tool in hands of the West. And you use this tool in order to justify your own actions.
Wanna bomb Iraq? Yes, they have mass destruction weapons. Wanna bomb Afghanistan? Yes, they have Al Qaeda. Wanna bomb Russia? Yes, they imprison feminist punk bands, banned homosexuals and they have murdered journalist (he was better than Assange and Snowden).
Wanna bomb Japan? Stop! But they don't have nuclear weapon. F..k that, let's bomb them anyway.
US is the only country that used nuclear weapon against other country (and this country had no any nuclear weapons).
And now you're telling me how homosexuals feel? Yes, they're fine!
Also, as a russian I'd like to make it clear that RomanPushkin does not represent me.
