Russian Duma to consider law on blocking foreign social media that censor the free speech of Russian citizens:
A group of Russian politicians has put forward a bill aimed at punishing foreign social media firms for discriminating against Russian media outlets. In recent months, RT and others have been censored on networks like Twitter.
The parliamentarians, including MP Alexander Khinshtein and Senator Alexey Pushkov, have proposed punishing social media networks that display prejudice on the basis of nationality, language, or anti-Russia sanctions. If found guilty, the websites could be fined or even blocked entirely. …
Speaking to Moscow-based news agency TASS, one of the document’s authors, MP Anton Gorelkin, said the law would give the government the right to slow a website down.
“Access restriction, which includes slowing down traffic, is intended as an extreme response against the blatant discrimination of Russian media outlets on foreign platforms,” Gorelkin explained. “I have always been a proponent of soft power and an opponent of blocking, but the state should always have a hard option in reserve for particularly malicious violators of the law.”
Blogging about this a bit late – it was introduced three weeks ago – but this is partially
Even though I have long conclusively confirmed that PUTLER reads my blog, he is still a boomer at heart, focusing more on NGOs and “foreign agents” restrictions. I mean, good for him – but this is an early 2010s issue when you have non-systemic oppositioners visiting the US Embassy for their instructions, not so relevant for today.
But it is YouTube now, not TV, where almost all Russian zoomers and most millennials and even many X’ers now get their news and content from. And YouTube now explicitly admits to being a shill of the American state:
YouTube has a near monopoly on video hosting outside China, and it has just de facto banned questioning the legitimacy of the American political system in a way that it doesn't of any other country. https://t.co/kTon7ThYsC
— Anatoly Karlin (@powerfultakes) December 9, 2020
I think it is a very bad idea for Russia to allow the untrammelled operation of American social networks (primarily – YouTube, Facebook, Twitter) that jurisdictionally answer to American laws, promote American foreign policy aims, aggressively push SJW and BLM ideologies onto Russia, while having the gall to portray themselves as pillars of free speech while censoring and restricting Russian citizens and news organizations whose content doesn’t toe the Atlanticist agenda. It is a particularly bad idea to allow people who hate it set the tone on the medium that’s replacing TV for the younger cohorts. (In fact, I wonder to what extent the collapse in electoral support for Putinism amongst zoomers since ~2018 is linked to this).
Hopefully that law goes through.
Creating alternatives isn’t hard. Yandex has long had a quasi-YouTube like service, Yandex.Efir. VK is ergonomically and aesthetically superior to Facebook. Goal should be to get them all in place.
Progressively slow down the YouTube’s and Facebooks for 1-2 years so that people become frustrated with them and switch over to the Russian platforms.
Then Block them like Russia already inexplicably does to piracy sites like Sci-Hub and GenLib. The people who really need access to them will use VPN, the 90% normie population who are especially vulnerable to Chaos mind viruses will be just as happy without.
In related encouraging news: From March 1, 2021, it will become mandatory for cell phone retailers to preinstall Russian apps – search, browers, social media, news aggregators, voice assistants, antiviruses, etc. – onto any cell phones sold in Russia.
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Fining (and/or slowing) is better than outright banning or blocking. Banning and blocking have a Cold War we-can’t-let-the-West-poison-our-youth-with-Freedom vibe to it when the reality is the reverse: the tyrannical market hegemon threatens to crush the smaller but relatively freer Russian market.
Fines or other penalties enacted after an open due process-type hearing would be especially galling to the hypocritical social media giants who falsely pretend to be champions of freedom and fair play: “Oh, conviction of YouTube in the Saint Petersburg Forum of Human Rights for discrimination, systemic racism, abridgement of free speech and preventing indigenous voices from being heard? That’ll be a fine of 10% of YouTube’s global revenue and 3/4 speed throttling until YouTube pays up. What’s that? YouTube will no longer serve content to Russia? OK, but that’s YouTube’s choice, not ours.”
Make ’em live up to their supposed standards. Crucify them because of course they can’t.
Where have I heard that before?
#4
Is there anything preventing red US states from outlawing political censorship/suppression on social media sites, and fining sites that don’t comply?
I’d hate for the US to develop a “walled garden”, but I suppose market dominance prevents one for the moment.
The good thing about Yandex is that it allows you to create an anonymous e-mail address fairly easily.
Indeed, you do not even need to have a unique phone number for each account, one phone number can make multiple email addresses. The app itself is also pretty slick and operates smoothly.
The politicians themselves.
Yes, social-media apps are now infowar tools, and highly effective ones at that:
This stuff about PUTLER! (you forgot the exclamation point at the end, BTW!) reading your blog–are you actually serious about this, Anatoly? Or are you simply messing around with us?
The problem with this is that the near-infinite pool of soyadeen who are in normal societies put to work in the fields and factories (thanks enlightenment and abolitionism!), who are also unfortunately skilled in the techniques of professional kvetching, aka pilpul, will then start making noise and arguing that it’s all lies and that they’re perfectly fine and sacred and that the entire Russian population should either bow before the holy Alphabet corporation and America or commit mass suicide.
Either way, we know who the problem is. Those who are infected with the mind virus, and those who will be infected anyway. There is no cure, yet they are the tier 1 existential danger not only to the country, but the civilization, and the human race itself. Take that how you will.
I know one of my articles was at least seen by Lavrov, but PUTLER!? Probably not, but who knows. Still, I find it cute how so many of my recommendations have indeed been taken up by him in the past couple of years, most notably on easing immigration procedures for Russian speakers in the Near Abroad, decriminalizing Article 282 hate speech laws, and making Russians the state-forming people in the new Constitution, shows that I and the Russian nationalist “mean” and PUTLER! have all settled on something of a common wavelength, hence why I no longer oppose him as I did c.2016-18.
May I ask which one?
Sorry, probably too confidential, given circumstances.
While not the post in question, this one contains a strong hint: http://www.unz.com/akarlin/russia-mulls-easier-citizenship-for-all-ukrainians/
Quid Pro Quo, yes or no. If the U.S. social media giants are going censor Russian sites such as RT, then it is only reasonable for the Russians to cut them off access to the Russian market. I would approach it slightly differently. Find some way to use the social media giants in a way where they are unable to make money from the usage.
Google absolutely fools around with the algorithms on YouTube just as they do with their search engine. It’s pathetic to claim US social media gives free speech. Sure – too bad most don’t know what are PSYOPS and are not.
American social media is evil. Just like Stalinism and Trotskyism.
Good idea. There were some lawsuits against Google as they preloaded all their apps onto Android which was an effective monopoly, so countering this is smart. But on the other hand, the key issue in my eyes is the inability to remove Google, or other big tech, related software from devices. Most Android phones come with Chrome as a system application which cannot be removed unless you root your device, same thing with Google Play Services which is foundational to the Android system but also collects data from all your other apps. States need to allow their citizens more control over their devices otherwise they are functionally unable to make nationalist choices against globohomo tech.
Apps are for suckers.
http://justine-haupt.com/rotarycellphone/RotaryCell1.JPG
There’s a pretty robust ecosphere below the surface. Three more Rus Youtube alternatives. They just need some protectionism for a while.
https://my.mail.ru/video/search?q=%D0%B0%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%8F%20%D0%BF%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BE%D1%82
https://www.tvigle.ru/video/ariia-patriot-live/
https://ok.ru/video/932350726635
I’ve been using Yandex for years, ever since I got to China. I’d encourage anyone to drop the Silicon Valley junk and switch post-haste.
Just build your own platform they said.
Russia could ban Android altogether and use the Huawei alternative.
I don’t use them, so they’re not a problem to me. I follow the old method of going direct to the website.
People who rely on social media for news and suchlike are usually ignorant, poorly educated, intellectually lazy or indoctrinated. The reason why the West is in the mess it’s in.
They would probably provide coverage to Russia anyway, and spin it as some social responsibility PR budget. Just like no shareholders have ever sued (nor would they have anything more than a snowball’s chance in hell) for banning political content (and theoretically losing revenue over it), no one will ever question providing Russian content to Russia. These companies are not really profit oriented, they are both personal fiefdoms of their founders and at the same time arms of the American intelligence services and the deep state.
It would be nice if they supported Linux on phones, though I suppose it would be uneconomic.
Russia should ban Western social media to protect its youth from stuff like this
https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1338336656953368579
The US Deep State has played a key role in the creation of all these oligopolists from Bezos to Zuckerberg. For example, Myspace used to be the biggest social networking site. In 2005, they were bought by Fox. By 2008 they had been overtaken by Facebook. Myspace has continued to be run down. Was this the quid pro quo for Murdoch being able to expand Fox unhindered ? Quite probably.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myspace
The quid pro quo for the oligopolists is that they do what Deep State tells them to do politically. Hence the censorship on Facebook, Twitter, Google etc.
Fine them per complaint filed by Russian citizens who have been censored (on website for that purpose).
Every social media post that is censored counts as one complaint. The citizens can keep posting the same material over and over and file complaints over and over….
Pay a bounty for each complaint that is to be paid from fines levied (for that purpose) on Big Tech.
This could be fun to watch!
That’s why there has not been any competition to emerge. Its hard to compete with free, subsidized by our own government.
The Constitution.
Individual states don’t get to regulate interstate commerce.
Depends, Huawei stopped allowing unlocked bootloaders on their phones which is a bad thing. What flexibility will their new OS allow? Overall I do think Chinese tech solutions are better for a state than garbage Western alternatives that are overpriced, but look at just the aesthetic and usability of MIUI on Xiaomi devices. It looks like jank and uses like jank. Whatever Huawei develops probably will be worse than Android but in terms of removing Western security risks its a beneficial exchange as long as Huawei doesn’t box people in like Google does.
AK’s on the right track here. From the Russian perspective, the problems are that US social media is anti-Russian, a willing partner of the Deep State and deeply pozzed – in that order.
Whether they engage in “censorship” is a pretext and fig-leaf – and maybe a try-too-hard attempt to double-standard-shame the liberal West for not upholding its own values.
The beauty of autarky is not needing pretzel-logic pretexts provided by Magic Paper to act in the interests of your people.
Russia tried the free speech bit along with other liberal values starting in the 90’s. Lesson: give the VOA shills an inch and they’ll take a color-revolution mile.
It wasn’t long ago that Silicon Valley techbros were thought of as being anti-government, against censorship and so on. There used to be very little censorship on major social media platforms outside of porn or gore. It’s very convenient that Silicon Valley turned obedient to state power first after that billions of people from all over the world had become dependent on their platforms.
Obedient is actually a bad word to describe the situation. It’s a mutual relationship. The West wants the big Western tech companies to dominate the world and those tech companies wants the same.
At this point it’s undeniable that Twitter, Youtube, etc actively opposes Russia. It’s unnerving how much political influence they have and how much they could do without even banning channels/accounts. The simplest thing they could do is changing the search rankings. For example, making Russian political channels with anti-Putin bias easier to find or putting RT videos lower on the search rankings. Or even more insidiously, what about manipulating upvotes on videos and comments?
Of course it is a bad idea. It is essentially allowing unlimited access to a country’s citizens for hostile propaganda.
I am surprised it took this long for the Russian politicians to react.
“I am surprised it took this long for the Russian politicians to react.”
As someone who knows very little about politics in general and probably less about Russian politics (since I have too much other stuff to do instead of reading the news), let me take a stab.
A generation that was younger and more familiar with social media had to take charge first. With Mishustin appointing younger people to new positions this happened. Medvedev was also of the same generation, but I’m not sure if he was familiar with social media and the problems it represents, and even if he was, he was still holding out hope that the relationship with the West can be repaired and it would be too short-sighted to go the China route on blocking and developing your own. With Mishustin in charge it all changed; it seems that the people in his surroundings don’t believe reconciliation and a subordinate position where Russia is plugged into Western technology but is still allowed to be a regional power is possible.
Now if they really do read Anatoly’s posts, then he should make more about demographics in order to tell them how to fix it: i.e. Make kindergartens free and and training to be a kindergarten teacher free as well as subsidized for living expenses during the training. A lot of young women who train to be kindergarten teachers end up having children and can use the knowledge to raise them, even if they quit the job later.
Cortez actually makes a good point, nurses and paramedics are paid like shit, obviously the nature of their work and the sort of people it attracts making striking practically impossible.
And nobody is exactly forcing the poor pathetic suckers to cough up money to see a woman naked on the internet (so rare!), I’m pretty sure whining about OnlyFans is a redflag for inceldom.
Well also, as Ron Unz talked about in a lengthy post once, most tech-people are completely ignorant about politics, to a degree unusual for intelligent/successful people, which in practice usually means they indifferently go along with whatever agenda the MSM media is currently pushing. Or they’re Libertarian, an insurmountable ‘own-goal’ in politics no matter where you fall on the left-right spectrum.
But I find it hard to imagine androids like Zucc or Jack as politically zealous people in their own right.
Good point. Back then most of the American boomer politicians didn’t really understand how big of an asset it was to have all the largest social media companies located in the country. Many of them were afraid that the internet would hurt other American companies because copyrighted material could be uploaded to Youtube and other similar issues. So politicians would constantly suggest new restrictive regulatory laws for the IT industry. This resulted in techbros having to “fight back”.
Closer you are to “political class” in Russia, the more you will be likely addicted to “Western social media”.
If you wanted to know that Lavrov’s family are Israeli citizens, or that Ksenia Sobchak is eating dinner with the Kremlin spokesperson – openly, if tangentially, publicized by them on social media.
Television is easy to provide a pro-government perspective to the public. YouTube is more difficult – lower barriers to entry for new channels and so far lower popularity of astroturfed content.
Sure, one of the most obvious absurd things about society: that useful people like paramedics and firemen that would save our lives, are paid less than lazy professionals who sit on the desk like lawyers and software engineers, let alone than fully useless self-interested attention-seeking trash e.g. politicians, academics, etc.
Even a fat girl who shows breasts on onlyfans is likely providing more honest labour, than an average politician.
Alexandria Cortez is also writing these Tweets while being paid as a – politician. Her salary from taxpayers is $175000. In addition she receives all kinds of expenses in her “job”. https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/perks-members-of-congress-get-for-free-at-the-taxpayers-expense.html/
If her Tweet said that she was going to donate 75% of her government salary to paramedics, then it would be a good point.