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On ‘Island’ in Russian Arctic, Arrival of Fast Internet Shakes Political Calm

nytimes.com

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Re: On ‘Island’ in Russian Arctic, Arrival of Fast Internet Shakes Political Calm

#11

Post by birdyrooster »

igivanov wrote: post #4
0x38B wrote: post #2

Enjoyed the excellent photos and reporting. As far as "Life without fast internet": "Residents adjusted. They created an intracity computer network that, among other things, allowed locals to download pirated movies and TV shows without connecting to the wider web. Going on vacation, several said, meant sitting in a hotel room, updating smartphone apps and taking in the bounties of the online world, even if the beach…

[flagged]

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"Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That destroys intellectual curiosity, the value of the site."

Re: On ‘Island’ in Russian Arctic, Arrival of Fast Internet Shakes Political Calm

#12

Post by Konnstann »

rconti wrote: post #7

This is just really confusing to me. I had no idea that propaganda was so resurgent in Russia. I thought openness to modern/popular media would have knocked down a lot of misinformation about "the west". I think of Russians as being active participants on the Internet; I would have thought that this would keep a bit of a lid on single-point-of-view propaganda. (Obviously there's plenty of misinformation on the intern…

Russian media is mostly state-owned, and independent journalists are jailed for speaking out against the current regime. The government is in the process of trying to emulate China's Great Firewall.

The country is in a state of disarray, where the oligarchs are getting hit with sanctions, oil sales are dwindling, and the only way to maintain the status quo is to keep the public focused on an outside enemy, which currently is Ukraine.

I don't know why they would expand access, but they might just use it to feed the populace more propaganda.

Re: On ‘Island’ in Russian Arctic, Arrival of Fast Internet Shakes Political Calm

#13

Post by adventured »

rconti wrote: post #7

This is just really confusing to me. I had no idea that propaganda was so resurgent in Russia. I thought openness to modern/popular media would have knocked down a lot of misinformation about "the west". I think of Russians as being active participants on the Internet; I would have thought that this would keep a bit of a lid on single-point-of-view propaganda. (Obviously there's plenty of misinformation on the intern…

> Why is Russia pushing so hard to spread Internet access in such a situation?

The authorities fully recognize the utility value of it, in terms of productivity, communication and economy broadly.

So in line with that they're simultaneously crafting the beginnings of Russia's version of the Chinese firewall (some have taken to calling it Runet for short; Runet used to be a more generic term referring to sites primarily popular with Russians):

"Putin signs law to create an independent Russian internet"

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/01/europe/vladimir-putin-russian...

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/05/putin-signs-bill...

Re: On ‘Island’ in Russian Arctic, Arrival of Fast Internet Shakes Political Calm

#14

Post by igivanov »

wavefunction wrote: post #5
igivanov wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

>Going on vacation, several said, meant sitting in a hotel room You missed the "going on vacation" part I guess, though perhaps you believe people in Norilsk "go on vacation" by booking a hotel room in Norilsk.

Yes I missed it. My other points still stand.

Re: On ‘Island’ in Russian Arctic, Arrival of Fast Internet Shakes Political Calm

#15

Post by empath75 »

rconti wrote: post #7

This is just really confusing to me. I had no idea that propaganda was so resurgent in Russia. I thought openness to modern/popular media would have knocked down a lot of misinformation about "the west". I think of Russians as being active participants on the Internet; I would have thought that this would keep a bit of a lid on single-point-of-view propaganda. (Obviously there's plenty of misinformation on the intern…

Only 1/3rd of russians can speak english, supposedly -- and most of Russian language media online is controlled from moscow.

Re: On ‘Island’ in Russian Arctic, Arrival of Fast Internet Shakes Political Calm

#16

Post by account73466 »

birdyrooster wrote: post #11
igivanov wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This kind of comment is against Hacker News commenting guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That destroys intellectual curiosity, the value of the site."

Would nice to see this note appearing more often in every second post about China.

Re: On ‘Island’ in Russian Arctic, Arrival of Fast Internet Shakes Political Calm

#17

Post by lyxsus »

empath75 wrote: post #15
rconti wrote: post #7

This is just really confusing to me. I had no idea that propaganda was so resurgent in Russia. I thought openness to modern/popular media would have knocked down a lot of misinformation about "the west". I think of Russians as being active participants on the Internet; I would have thought that this would keep a bit of a lid on single-point-of-view propaganda. (Obviously there's plenty of misinformation on the intern…

Only 1/3rd of russians can speak english, supposedly -- and most of Russian language media online is controlled from moscow.

Oh, that's generous.

Re: On ‘Island’ in Russian Arctic, Arrival of Fast Internet Shakes Political Calm

#18

Post by ephemeralism »

birdyrooster wrote: post #11
igivanov wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

This kind of comment is against Hacker News commenting guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. That destroys intellectual curiosity, the value of the site."

Isn't the posting of the article itself in breach of those violations?

Re: On ‘Island’ in Russian Arctic, Arrival of Fast Internet Shakes Political Calm

#19

Post by account73466 »

rconti wrote: post #7

This is just really confusing to me. I had no idea that propaganda was so resurgent in Russia. I thought openness to modern/popular media would have knocked down a lot of misinformation about "the west". I think of Russians as being active participants on the Internet; I would have thought that this would keep a bit of a lid on single-point-of-view propaganda. (Obviously there's plenty of misinformation on the intern…

>> I thought openness to modern/popular media would have knocked down a lot of misinformation about "the west".

Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation about Russia as well. Practically, 99% of all articles are negative in one way or another. The same happens with China. It used to be the same about Japan in the 80ies. People tend to think that they are able to properly assess inputs but they can't, they consume what is given and praise their masters in a highly predictable manner.

Re: On ‘Island’ in Russian Arctic, Arrival of Fast Internet Shakes Political Calm

#20

Post by codeulike »

Just last week I stumbled upon this gallery of photos of Norilsk

http://www.bbc.com/culture/gallery/20190321-norilsk-the-city...

Taken over seven months in 2012 to 2013 as part of her Days of Night/Nights of Day project, Russian photographer Elena Chernyshova’s images reveal what it’s like to live in one of the world’s most isolated cities. In Norilsk, winter lasts nine months – and during the polar night the sun doesn’t rise for two months.

One of the roads in the city is on Google Street View

https://goo.gl/maps/LrzbFMFLuUvY7sdJ8

edit: And all the way along the street, you see 4 people in Google-coloured red/green/yellow/blue snowsuits. haha https://goo.gl/maps/Z1dFVZBF9fHV1enk7

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