81–90 of 291 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Syria had/has combat videos. I think that was the first to happen while it was ubiquitous. It did not make it any less intense or terribly.
Potato quality footage was ubiquitous, though there is some HD. All the Ukraine footage I've seen looks like much higher definition.
A good tactic would be to point out to Russians that their government is censoring political things for them. They like to think they are free and above the hypocrisy of the west. But the key thing is the West allows it's citizens to criticise itself. The Russians do not have that freedom. It's basically becoming like China in the way of censorship and lack of freedom, to protect it's citizens and the fatherland. To…
In the 2000s and 2010s Russia lowered bandwidth on Western social media (and webmail) platforms to promote local alternatives. It worked and most Russians are not on Facebook, twitter and reddit. However Russia failed to suppress and replicate YouTube that is the only massively popular Western platform in Russia.
>However Russia failed to suppress and replicate YouTube that is the only massively popular Western platform in Russia. I'd say Instagram is as popular. Not sure about other services.
In the 2000s and 2010s Russia lowered bandwidth on Western social media (and webmail) platforms to promote local alternatives. It worked and most Russians are not on Facebook, twitter and reddit. However Russia failed to suppress and replicate YouTube that is the only massively popular Western platform in Russia.
> It worked and most Russians are not on Facebook, twitter and reddit
As a Russian, it's the first time I'm hearing about it. Do you have a source? My impression was that the early local alternatives became more popular because they were better tailored to local realities (better localization, more detailed maps and suggestions etc.), it happened way before the government started slowing down some social networks in the late 2010's. For example, Google search initially failed to account for grammatical declension of Russian, and Yandex beat it by several years (i.e. Google would simply match words as is). Google Docs wasn't aware Ё is a letter and its spellcheck marked all words with it as a spelling error. Or when it tells you the best shop nearby to buy toothpaste is in Oklahoma. There was simply lack of investment in Russian localization because our market wasn't very important to the US. I was one of the early adopters of VK (Facebook's alternative) in 2006 and I remember Facebook wasn't even on my radar (I don't think I heard about it that much), a friend of mine simply sent me a link to VK, I got hooked and invited many more friends of mine. Zuckerberg visited Russia to promote Facebook in 2012 for the first time (the year they finally started a campaign to improve localization for Russia), but it was 6 years late. Youtube's alternative, Rutube, failed because they had nothing new to offer (in fact, I tried to use it, and it was a miserable experience) and Youtube was already widely popular. I honestly don't know why Twitter never took off here, no one uses it and there are no Russian alternatives either. What I want to say is that the local alternatives became popular long before Kremlin's crackdown on the Internet, it happened pretty organically.
No fan of Russia, but to pretend that facebook is some neutral platform that isn't trying to push their own political agenda is naive.
A good tactic would be to point out to Russians that their government is censoring political things for them. They like to think they are free and above the hypocrisy of the west. But the key thing is the West allows it's citizens to criticise itself. The Russians do not have that freedom. It's basically becoming like China in the way of censorship and lack of freedom, to protect it's citizens and the fatherland. To…
The propaganda inside Russia is very strong. Russians need sanctions, they need to start suffering (economically or otherwise). And then maybe they'll wake up.
The internet just feels so small currently. The technology seems to be all here to make it distributed and open it up, but the convenience of centralization and the lack of network-effects of the distributed solutions seem to be the bottle-neck that stop them from gaining traction.
I remember a lovely time when my RSS was pulling in data from a huge and various number of independent sources, non-algorythmically, all compiled nicely in GReader ... without social media flame wars hanging off the end of every link. /random-cry-against-centralisation-of-the-internet
A good tactic would be to point out to Russians that their government is censoring political things for them. They like to think they are free and above the hypocrisy of the west. But the key thing is the West allows it's citizens to criticise itself. The Russians do not have that freedom. It's basically becoming like China in the way of censorship and lack of freedom, to protect it's citizens and the fatherland. To…
Heh, "point to Russians". I have several friends in Moscow, and up until the last few days they were in complete denial about Putin's intentions or troops buildup. There were memes, jokes, etc. The propaganda inside Russia is very strong. Russians need sanctions, they need to start suffering (economically or otherwise). And then maybe they'll wake up.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe I'm paranoid, but I assume 100% of Russian content on Reddit is manufactured. Their government has just invested so much into psyops that it successfully undermined legitimate engagement (for me).
Russia has a population of a 140 million people. It is utterly preposterous to believe not a single one uses Reddit AND doesn't agree with their government. Not to mention, where do you think those people would go? Maybe Reddit? Maybe that actually makes a ton of sense?
A good tactic would be to point out to Russians that their government is censoring political things for them. They like to think they are free and above the hypocrisy of the west. But the key thing is the West allows it's citizens to criticise itself. The Russians do not have that freedom. It's basically becoming like China in the way of censorship and lack of freedom, to protect it's citizens and the fatherland. To…
Heh, "point to Russians". I have several friends in Moscow, and up until the last few days they were in complete denial about Putin's intentions or troops buildup. There were memes, jokes, etc. The propaganda inside Russia is very strong. Russians need sanctions, they need to start suffering (economically or otherwise). And then maybe they'll wake up.
What makes you sure that it won't cement their position even more? Western countries hurting russia's economy via sanctions basically confirms the "evil westerners" narrative.