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Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

reuters.com

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Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#81

Post by gdy »

conistonwater wrote: post #36
gdy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I most certainly do. 13. Recalls that the restrictive measures taken by the EU are directly linked to the Russian Federation’s violation of international law with the illegal annexation of Crimea and the destabilisation of Ukraine, while the trade measures taken by the Russian Federation, including those against Ukraine and other Eastern Partnership countries which have recently concluded Association Agreements with…

Was this seriously considered, or is it just the European Parliament saying things? When I google this stuff, I can't find anything to support it like an actual plan or something.

Not a true Scotsman?

According to Bloomberg, the U.K. plans to propose blocking Russia from the SWIFT banking transaction system, a move analysts say would effectively cut off Russian businesses from the rest of the world's financial system. U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron will put forward the proposal during a meeting with E.U. leaders in Brussels on Saturday.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-08-29/u-k-wants...

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#82

Post by purerandomness »

ktjfi wrote: post #73
PeterZhizhin wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Except that in Russia this works a little bit different. You need a permission (not approbation) from the authorities for any political gatherings. Otherwise, everyone gathering risks spending 15 days in jail (or $500 fines, median monthly salary after tax $300) for gathering illegally. Usually they forbid them, so that was an exception.

So like in any other country? Except for the forbidding, of course.

Can you name one single other country where attendants are put in jail when attending a rally that was not permitted?

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#83

Post by dang »

shmerl wrote: post #79
dang wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't take HN threads further into political or nationalistic flamewar.

What's flameable here? It's all factual and not the matter of dispute. And the point is that fixing symptoms won't help until the root of the problem is fixed. And I'm not saying protesters are wrong or anything. It's just that the problem is a lot deeper.

It was far from "all factual", and clearly in dispute since someone immediately disputed it.

If you post strong political claims using pejorative language like "disease", "dictatorship", and "disregarding the people" (which in fact is almost all of what you said), you're going to take threads like this further into flamewar whether you mean to or not. That's bad for thoughtful discussion and therefore off topic here.

Most of us are living in contexts where our strongly held political/national views feel obvious and unobjectionable. But the minute you open up to a much broader context, such as a highly international forum like HN, it becomes painfully clear that this is not the case.

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#84

Post by anticodon »

PeterZhizhin wrote: post #39
comboy wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what exactly are they doing? Just cutting off random IPs? The actual IP was blocked or is it only DNS based? How about tor traffic?

Right now, we have a legislation (this one existed since 2012) that requires to ban certain IP addresses. All ISP's are being monitored by the authority called Roscomnadzor and allowing access to a banned IP will lead to fines. Unfortunately, this doesn't really work because people here learned how to use VPN's, proxies and Tor. Moreover, with cloud providers you can easily switch IP addresses. Telegram messenger was…

> People in our government believe that the Internet was designed in the US to control the world.

Maybe it wasn't designed with this objective in mind, but it is definitely used this way. And the fact that Google and Facebook are de-facto monopolies doesn't help.

And I'm not from the government. I'm just another little guy that sees tons of that propaganda every day.

For example, I watch mostly videos from conferences on YouTube. Why YT displays rusophobic videos in the recommendations list instead of more videos related to the conference? Even after I clicked hide button on them multiple times?

And all those rusophobic comments under every video about Russia? Who writes them? Sometimes I see exactly the same comment from different nicknames. I even made a screenshots of such instances, only to find out that nobody cares.

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#85

Post by gdy »

PeterZhizhin wrote: post #35
ethelward wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where you live, but is it not the same (i.e. you need official approbation to plan a protest) in most countries?

Yes. Except that in Russia this works a little bit different. You need a permission (not approbation) from the authorities for any political gatherings. Otherwise, everyone gathering risks spending 15 days in jail (or $500 fines, median monthly salary after tax $300) for gathering illegally. Usually they forbid them, so that was an exception.

"everyone gathering risks spending 15 days in jail"

Another Russian here.

You are misinformed. The law threatens you with 15 days in jail if you injure somebody or damage property. Likewise, the fines are reserved for things like being drunk or inciting violence.

https://zakoved.ru/pravonarusheniya/nesanktsionirovannyj-mit...

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#86

Post by woodandsteel »

dmix wrote: post #71
selune wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I might be pessimistic because I am in close contact with that demographic (lots of my friends are young, educated, comparatively well-off guys from Moscow working in tech) and, pardon my French, they decide shit. Oligarchs decide the fate of Russia.

Yet the oligarch’s power plays and Russia’s tough posturing seems popular among the population. Or at least tolerable to the average person. How do you account for that?

For one thing, Putin controls the media so they have been propagandized. That's why he is so afraid of the internet.

Beyond that, due to Russia's sad history, the population has pretty low standards and expectations for its leaders.

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#87

Post by gdy »

purerandomness wrote: post #82
ktjfi wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So like in any other country? Except for the forbidding, of course.

Can you name one single other country where attendants are put in jail when attending a rally that was not permitted?

In Russia this might happen if you injure somebody or damage property during unpermitted rally.

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#88

Post by anticodon »

anticodon wrote: post #84
PeterZhizhin wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now, we have a legislation (this one existed since 2012) that requires to ban certain IP addresses. All ISP's are being monitored by the authority called Roscomnadzor and allowing access to a banned IP will lead to fines. Unfortunately, this doesn't really work because people here learned how to use VPN's, proxies and Tor. Moreover, with cloud providers you can easily switch IP addresses. Telegram messenger was…

> People in our government believe that the Internet was designed in the US to control the world. Maybe it wasn't designed with this objective in mind, but it is definitely used this way. And the fact that Google and Facebook are de-facto monopolies doesn't help. And I'm not from the government. I'm just another little guy that sees tons of that propaganda every day. For example, I watch mostly videos from conference…

Another example: on one of facebook groups I regularly see posts from a person regularly bashing Russia. Under every post he leaves derogatory comments. Sometimes he posts derogatory posts although the facebook group is not about Russia at all.

Just recently he had shared a meme picture from some of the "opposition" groups (Alexei Navalny or his friends) stating that Russia has the highest suicides rate in the world (of course, because we're poor and doomed and Putin eats our children for breakfast).

I didn't believe it and went to several official sources (including international) to verify. Of course, we're very far from the first place in the list of suicide rates. I've commented this on the post and received zero reaction. Moreover, the post was liked and shared further by several members of the group.

This is all you need to know about our "opposition".

And there're many persons like this disseminating fake news in facebook groups and other communities. I have no evidence, but I strongly believe that they're on a payroll from some non-Russian agency or NGO.

Re: Thousands of Russians protest against internet restrictions

#90

Post by shmerl »

dang wrote: post #83
shmerl wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's flameable here? It's all factual and not the matter of dispute. And the point is that fixing symptoms won't help until the root of the problem is fixed. And I'm not saying protesters are wrong or anything. It's just that the problem is a lot deeper.

It was far from "all factual", and clearly in dispute since someone immediately disputed it. If you post strong political claims using pejorative language like "disease", "dictatorship", and "disregarding the people" (which in fact is almost all of what you said), you're going to take threads like this further into flamewar whether you mean to or not. That's bad for thoughtful discussion and therefore off topic here.…

Who disputed it? The only ones who "dispute" the autocratic nature of power in Russia are government backed trolls. That's not considered dispute by any means.

And trying to be neutral or "soft" about these kind of things ends up in whitewashing it. It sounds strong, because the problem is serious.

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