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Pavel Durov quits as VKontakte CEO

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Re: Pavel Durov quits as VKontakte CEO

#61

Post by smsm42 »

pkinsky wrote: post #36
mtrimpe wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the US isn't in a steep decline. The US doesn't start invasions and pretends it's someone else's military. The US doesn't cancel leases for pro-Snowden news outlets. The US doesn't send protesters against election-fraud away for 5 years. The US doesn't introduce laws making it illegal to support gays in public. The US doesn't forcefully remove protesters against a potential war at first sight; even if the…

>The US doesn't start invasions and pretends it's someone else's military. Drone strikes come to mind. Didn't the US claim that bombings in Yemen where the work of the local government? That said, the order of magnitude is indeed different.

US didn't occupy Yemen and claim it's "local self-defense forces" and then rushed through a fake referendum to make Yemen part of the US, last time I checked. So I'm not sure what is here to compare. Each major country has intelligence and clandestine operations which are not publicly acknowledged, but it's different between cloak-and-dagger stuff and occupying a part of neighboring country and trying to present it as if they did it to themselves.

Re: Pavel Durov quits as VKontakte CEO

#62

Post by avodonosov »

The article tries to make out of thin air an impression that Kremlin took over VK by force, or something like that. Which is a complete bullshit IMHO.

Durov and others just exchanged their shares to cash, that's all.

Trying to mention this together with the fact that Durov disobeyed traffic cop order and hit him with his car (he did, that's a proven case, there is a video), doesn't make it a "Kremlin forceful takeover of VK"

Re: Pavel Durov quits as VKontakte CEO

#63

Post by mtrimpe »

camus2 wrote: post #58
mtrimpe wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It more seems that the seriousness of the conflict depends on whether you see this as an isolated incident (which just happens to be the worst violation of territorial integrity in Europe since WWII) or as yet another indicator that the exact same social dynamics that led us to WWII in the first place are intensifying significantly. I'm curious as to what your take on this is then though ...

which just happens to be the worst violation of territorial integrity in Europe since WWII sure,but it's not like Kosovo ever happened... oh wait,NATO was on board with this...

In Kosovo there was active, widespread genocide going on. Absolutely nothing of such kind was happening in Crimea.

Additionally the Kosovo constitution offered room for secession and it's secession was consequently recognized by the vast majority of the international community.

The votes on the UN council as to the legality of Russia's actions [1] say enough, but Huffinton Post wrote a fairly comprehensive article [2] about the topic.

P.S. If you plan to link to the RT counter-piece [3] just let me know and I'll list all the factual inaccuracies for you.

[1] http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/u...

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-l-phillips/crimea-is-not...

[3] http://rt.com/news/kosovo-crimea-referendum-recognition-441/

Re: Pavel Durov quits as VKontakte CEO

#64

Post by gtirloni »

mtrimpe wrote: post #17
johnnydoebk wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I've been following the Crimea conflict very closely (which almost certainly is also what caused Pavel's departure) Reference is needed.

It says it in the article. Navalny was making statements condemning the Crimea annexation and giving advice on how best to apply economic sanction to the Kremlin-elite surrounding Putin. After the US followed his advice Navalny even tweeted that he was packing his bags for jail because "someone was going to have to pay for [those sanctions]".

So the US government is taking orders from the founder of a social network in Russia. I wonder how Obama is going to explain that now. Totally busted.

Re: Pavel Durov quits as VKontakte CEO

#65

Post by tormeh »

paulbaumgart wrote: post #11
workhere-io wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case it wasn't apparent, my "ever any doubt" question was rhetorical hyperbole. Any statement, no matter how self-evident, will have some people contradicting it. Your argument that the US is the best place to start a business is not in any way "self-evident", and you have provided no source or proof. So say some journalists. Their methodology seems sound. "We determined the Best Countries for Business by looking…

They left out "size and wealth of domestic market" and "access to capital," which I suspect are the most important factors beyond a minimal level of market fairness. It's really not self-evident that the vast majority of successful companies are started in the US?

I think "size and wealth of domestic market" and "access to capital" are the two most important ones as well. China and maybe India are going to test this hypothesis sometime within my life expectancy, I believe. Exciting times.

Re: Pavel Durov quits as VKontakte CEO

#66

Post by chobo »

[deleted] wrote: post #56
skolos wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article refers to "petrodollar warfare hypothesis". It doesn't provide any proof. In particular it doesn't prove any of the "forcing" that you refer to.

[deleted]

> I dont have to prove anything,do search on the internet if you really want to find out the facts.

No one says you "have to" prove anything but if you enter into an Internet argument and then pull this out, do you really expect people to take you seriously?

Re: Pavel Durov quits as VKontakte CEO

#67

Post by noteworthy »

mtrimpe wrote: post #24
johnnydoebk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

News about Pavel's departure appeared long before the conflict you're talking about. So these two events are not connected.

News about Pavel's departure started appearing ever since the hostile takeover well over a year ago. His actual departure was today which makes it very much possible, if not likely, that it was connected to recent events which undoubtedly resulted in additional pressure against his ideologies.

His list of reasons has been building up for years.

Russia in 2012 passed a law allowing censorship of 'pirate websites' and has been heavily abused. Vk has been making licensing deals with Sony and other labels. Pavel is a Libertarian and is against making the website 'corporate' (like facebook, motivated by money not freedom).

Both the Ukraine, arguments with shareholders and copyright pressure are recent. Putting them together he probably saw a restricted future with VK and now he has Telegram to fallback on, he now sees it an opportunity to quit.

However, Telegram has stated it will never charge or have ads, so my theory is he will be making more websites in the future, hopefully he will make websites which embrace his Libertarian ideals.

Re: Pavel Durov quits as VKontakte CEO

#68

Post by mtrimpe »

gtirloni wrote: post #64
mtrimpe wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It says it in the article. Navalny was making statements condemning the Crimea annexation and giving advice on how best to apply economic sanction to the Kremlin-elite surrounding Putin. After the US followed his advice Navalny even tweeted that he was packing his bags for jail because "someone was going to have to pay for [those sanctions]".

So the US government is taking orders from the founder of a social network in Russia. I wonder how Obama is going to explain that now. Totally busted.

Navalny is a Russian opposition leader. The founder of VKontakte is Pavel.

Re: Pavel Durov quits as VKontakte CEO

#69

Post by mtrimpe »

noteworthy wrote: post #67
mtrimpe wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

News about Pavel's departure started appearing ever since the hostile takeover well over a year ago. His actual departure was today which makes it very much possible, if not likely, that it was connected to recent events which undoubtedly resulted in additional pressure against his ideologies.

His list of reasons has been building up for years. Russia in 2012 passed a law allowing censorship of 'pirate websites' and has been heavily abused. Vk has been making licensing deals with Sony and other labels. Pavel is a Libertarian and is against making the website 'corporate' (like facebook, motivated by money not freedom). Both the Ukraine, arguments with shareholders and copyright pressure are recent. Putting…

Thanks for the comprehensive overview! Sounds about right to me. I hadn't heard about the 'pirate website' law though. Do you have some more info on that?

Also, just to be clear, I wasn't arguing that the Ukraine conflict caused his departure. Just that it was at least a contributing factor and at worst the straw that broke the camel's back.

Re: Pavel Durov quits as VKontakte CEO

#70

Post by tptacek »

shmerl wrote: post #47
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #2

This kind of thing seems to be one reason America is still the best place to start a business. I'm saying that in order to spark a debate and challenge that belief. Would anyone please list some actions taken by the US government which is similar in nature to the takeover illustrated here? It seems very similar to what happened in the middle ages. Before the rise of the merchant class, specifically the ability to def…

> I'm saying that in order to spark a debate and challenge that belief. Would anyone please list some actions taken by the US government which is similar in nature to the takeover illustrated here? Killing Lavabit for instance?

The US didn't kill Lavabit, so much as Lavabit decided to start an untenable business: one in which they vouchsafed secrecy to their customers but retained the ability to compromise that secrecy.

To understand how dumb that is, consider that AOL(!) runs a popular messaging service on which thousands of people exchange secure messages using OTR-enabled clients, and AOL could not be "killed" the way Lavabit was: the DOJ can't coerce AOL into betraying OTR-protected users, because AOL simply doesn't have that ability.

The reason Lavabit did have that ability is that getting users to install software is inconvenient and drastically harms adoption. Lavabit took a shortcut, and their users shared the resulting pain.

If you review the list of countries preceding the US on the Forbes list posted upthread, you won't find too many that wouldn't have left Lavabit similarly exposed.

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