Russia Quietly Passes Anti-Blogger Law 284
randomErr (172078) writes "Russia is tightening its grip on free speech and freedom of the Internet by creating a new 'bloggers law'. This policy follows the pattern set by China, Pakistan, Turkey, and Iran."
Any site with more than 3000 daily visitors will be required to register and be held to a number of restrictions, quoting the article: "Besides registering, bloggers can no longer remain anonymous online, and organizations that provide platforms for their work such as search engines, social networks and other forums must maintain computer records on Russian soil of everything posted over the previous six months."
Russia you were so close (Score:5, Insightful)
Enjoy your slide back in to totalitarianism.
Re:Russia you were so close (Score:5, Insightful)
If only they had the tools the NSA has.. They wouldn't even have to make it public!
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Is the impact of this really limited to Russia? LiveJournal is now based there and, while I'm sure it is used much less today than ten years ago, it must still host a large number of accounts belonging to bloggers in the US and elsewhere. Will real names now need to be attached to these accounts, or will their owner's real names need to be passed to the Russian authorities?
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No, it's not. My wife has been using LiveJournal for a dozen years. She's started moving all the content off there and onto an American hosting service.
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Yes, yes. And Joseph McCarthy was just as bad as Lavrentiy Beria... Ergo, America is just as bad — nay, worse than Russia...
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You need to learn a little history [wikipedia.org] before you start comparing historic figures.
On 5 March 1940, after the Gestapo–NKVD Third Conference was held in Zakopane, Beria sent a note (no. 794/B) to Stalin in which he stated that the Polish prisoners of war kept at camps and prisons in western Belarus and Ukraine were enemies of the Soviet Union, and recommended their execution. Most of them were military officers, but there were also intelligentsia, doctors, and priests for a total of over 22,000. With Stalin's approval, Beria's NKVD murdered them in the Katyn massacre.
In 1944, as the Germans were driven from Soviet soil, Beria was in charge of dealing with the various ethnic minorities accused of anti-sovietism and/or collaboration with the invaders, including the Chechens, the Ingush, the Crimean Tatars, the Pontic Greeks and the Volga Germans. All these groups were deported to Soviet Central Asia
I do not see any references to McCarthy having thousands of people slaughtered [wikipedia.org] and deporting entire cultures to gulags? While McCarthyism was bad it was nowhere near as bad as what happened in Russia.
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The depth and breadth of your historical knowledge is rivaled only by your inability to detect sarcasm.
That said, I hardly blame you — American's proclivity for equating their government's minor transgressions with the genuine evils of foreign regimes is as well known as it is unfortunate.
Every governement spies on its people (Score:2)
That doesn't make it right. I'd rather live in the US with our freedoms and if there are people living here that really find it so oppresive they should take every opportunity afforded them to move to some other utopia. I'm a libertarian and while I find our government too big and overreaching, at the end of the day I'm not denied my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Re:Russia you were so close (Score:5, Informative)
No, they just pass the information to the police that handles that job.
Look at what happened to all the Occupy members. Funny how all the important people in the movement were found very accurately by police forces across the country.
Re:Russia you were so close (Score:4, Interesting)
No, they just pass the information to the police that handles that job.
Look at what happened to all the Occupy members. Funny how all the important people in the movement were found very accurately by police forces across the country.
Found, and crucified:
Occupy Wall Street on Trial: Cecily McMillan Convicted of Assaulting Cop, Faces Up to Seven Years [democracynow.org]
Why Did FBI Monitor Occupy Houston, and Then Hide Sniper Plot Against Protest Leaders? [democracynow.org]
Like this dick authoritarian move by Russia, China et al. actions speak louder than words: The United States is not alone in being afraid of democracy... real democracy. Which starts with the more outspoken amongst us rallying together, writing blogs about the social problems we face, proposing solutions, attending OWS type events to agitate peacefully for positive change. Just too bad all those things that make common peoples lives better also happen to conflict with the goal of accumulating even more wealth for the richer parts of society. See graph: 12-country 1975-2007 chart of share of income growth going to The 1% [wordpress.com].
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vs.
Emphasis mine, of course. The two paragraphs contradict each other. Please, try again.
Re:Russia you were so close (Score:5, Informative)
Convicted of assaulting a cop doesn't mean she assaulted a cop. Policing and jailing of protestors is very often political.
In this case the flip side of the story is that she was grabbed on the left breast by a hand from behind, and the person doing so received an elbow in return. Any in other situation, it would be the boob grabber if anyone that would have been at fault. But cops are above the law.
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No, it does not mean that. It just makes it very likely. Beyond reasonable doubt likely...
But the point is, she was not a blogger — and was not prosecuted for peaceful speech as FriendlyLurker implied [slashdot.org].
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No, it does not mean that. It just makes it very likely. Beyond reasonable doubt likely...
I'm sorry, but no. That is only true if the police and criminal justice system are non-political. Which is almost never the case when it comes to protests and is not the case here.
I'd go further and say that at most demonstrations the police commit more criminal acts than the demonstrators.
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Police and judges may be biased, but the jury is not. Sure, to the losing side of any court proceedings, it seems like the entire world conspired against them — that's typical.
But the fact remains, not one blogger was prosecuted for their blog posts in the US. Certainly none of the OWS-associated bloggers.
Re:Russia you were so close (Score:5, Interesting)
She was convicted AND sentenced by a jury of her peers; not the police, not a judge.
Besides, I looked at the video and when I see the way she hits him and runs, it seems to me she planned on doing that from the get-go. You don't elbow somebody on accident and then run from them. Furthermore, if she was groped, how come she didn't make that claim until way later?
Sorry, but I'm with the 12 jurors on this one. I think 7 years might be excessive, but the law may call for that, and the jurors are instructed to prescribe a sentence based on how the law is written.
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Judge: "Mr. McMillan, you are accused of assaulting a police officer. What do you have to say for yourself?"
McMillan: "I didn't do it!"
Judge: "Officer Smith, did Mr. McMillan assault you?"
Officer: "Yep."
*bars slam*
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This was not a city employee ruling on a parking ticket. She was convicted by a jury.
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That there's a presiding judge doesn't imply that it isn't a trial by jury.
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writing blogs about the social problems we face, proposing solutions,
The only solutions I have heard from the Occupy movement is "give us your money". I would like to hear others. Do they exist? The Occupy movement is good at pointing out issues but not so good at pointing out solutions.
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Look at what happened to all the Occupy members
To most of them, including me, nothing.
Funny how all the important people in the movement were found very accurately by police forces across the country.
What? If you know that they are important, then why wouldn't police be able to find out? You're not special, you know.
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"All the IMPORTANT people".
Emphasis mine.
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None of those arrested because of the NSA tip-off [reuters.com] were arrested for their speech. It may or may not be in violation of the 4th Amendment, but not of the 1st.
What happened? Where do I look? For such a highly-moderated comment, you are offering surprisingly few links. Was anyone prosecuted for mere speech? Assaulting a police officer [democracynow.org] — yeah, that's more likely...
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It's fairly easy to make any person into a criminal under US law. That's what it's designed for, like laws in most imperial states with need of control over belligerent citizens. All you need to do is locate them and then throw a book at them as the legal experts like to put it.
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Please, name an American blogger so prosecuted after being critical of the US government.
The worst we've seen so far is the increased IRS-scrutiny of government critics [wsj.com], but that, somehow, is usually Ok [democracynow.org] with the same folks, who like comparing NSA with KGB.
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There's no need to. You can just make him unemployable, which is far more scary nowadays.
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Being "unemployable" is scarier than sent to a prison camp? Seriously? Nowadays — when work-force participation is at multi-decades lows [freebeacon.com]? Wow, I wonder, what color the sky is in your world...
But, alright, Ok, name one blogger made "unemployable" by the government for their posts critical of same.
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I'm getting a feeling that you're intentionally misunderstanding the issue.
It's a fact that modern crowd control in the West has many tools. To be able to keep those tools (i.e. general populace not rising up against them having these tools) many of them were pushed into private realm or otherwise obfuscated. Media is controlled through private ownership and editorial policy pushed by owners rather than government and legal framework. Public order can be enforced not just by police but by private guards. Pu
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At issue is the Russian government's requirement for bloggers to register with authorities and keep records in Russia (where FSB can get them).
An "insightful" comment [slashdot.org] equated that with NSA's activities — even though the NSA (nor any other American government entity) has never arrested or otherwise shut down a blogger.
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"Three Felonies a Day" is sickening to read.
You forgot to mention the latest trick is to lean on the banks to close the accounts of people whose views are not in compliance.
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None of those arrested because of the NSA tip-off [reuters.com] were arrested for their speech. It may or may not be in violation of the 4th Amendment, but not of the 1st.
Do you really believe that? The officer grabbed her boob from behind (hard enough to leave bruises in the shape of a hand), she reacted by swinging her elbow at her assailant. If she were somebody else being pulled over by an officer in any other situation, the officer would be the one being prosecuted for assault. While technically she wasn't prosecuted for her speech, clearly she was prosecuted (and persecuted) because of her speech.
And to stay on topic...Russia isn't saying you aren't allowed to blog.
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I believe, that the jury of new-yorkers has heard both sides and produced a verdict.
The registration requirement alone gives them full power to not just monitor you (something anybody can do already), but also shut you down by withdrawing the registration at any time.
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Funny how none of the Occupy members I actually know were subjected to this.
Probably because they weren't nearly as important to the movement as they managed to convince themselves.
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They pass their information to the military that assassinates them instead. Is this meant to be better?
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Is that really so strange? In Italy we have the same law and it is purported as something good and beneficial to public order!!
Re: Russia you were so close (Score:3)
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Somehow, I don't really think you'll get very far trying to use the Italian legal system as a role model for "good and beneficial" these days.
Now, if only they could have found a way to pin the L'aquil earthquake on Knox' Satanic orgies, well, then we could talk. But as it stands, they just look silly.
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surely disease isn't the fault of the rich.
oh really, who dictates treatment for diseases causing any significant amount of money, physicians or insurance companies? who pushed the family physican who quickly took care of emergent issues into the large healtchare chains? who wages war for profit and to control resources, causing starvation, disease, death, maimings?
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ha, I'm not talking of doctors or other mere "low digit millionaires", we're talking of people with income three orders of magnitude higher or so
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Because its not always affordable.
Then we get to the bulk of research being done by for profit companies for the most expensive treatments to prolong end of life diseases by six months or so, or fix boner problems in old men.
So yes, there are some pretty harsh limits on healthcare, and medical research, imposed by monetary restraints.
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Given that the US set back the progress of polio vaccination in the Muslim world by a bogus vaccination campaign designed to hunt down Bin Laden's DNA, wankers fighting over power are in a very real sense responsible for the resurgence of polio.
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I wouldn't call it a slide, more like a drop but then again they weren't that far away from it to begin with so the landing won't be too hard.
Re:Russia you were so close (Score:5, Interesting)
So often what happened in "Communist Russia" was used as an argument that communism was flawed.
Well now we've seen Russia as:
1) An Imperial State up to and including the reign of Tzar Nicholas II.
2) A communist state.
3) A capitalist democracy.
And in all cases it's been a repressive state. So maybe that wasn't anything to do with communism after all and was more to do with Russian culture.
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The US is more capable but we have a long history of voting out that which we don't like. So is your day to day life really changing? Black helicopters. Black suited men at the hipster coffee shop checking you out?
In Soviet Russia... (Score:5, Funny)
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Here in America, we have it much easier. The NSA does all that recordkeeping for us.
The NSA is doing all that record keeping for Russia also. They've just decided its cheaper to do in house than to outsource that labor to an NSA mole. That's the real reason behind this law.
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I was going to say:
"In Soviet Russia, government silences you.
In America, oh wait, they do same thing!"
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
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" You could let 1% of the people have all the nation's wealth. You could help your rich friends get richer by cutting their taxes. And bailing them out when they gamble and lose. You could ignore the needs of the poor for health care and education. Your media would appear free, but would secretly be controlled by one person and his family. You could wiretap phones. You could torture foreign prisoners. You could have rigged elections. You could lie about why you go to war. You could fill your prisons with on
Tell me in what country do the rich not control ca (Score:2)
The very computer you are typing on would not exist if not for capitalism. Profit drives all and makes us better off. Resources are finite and those that work for them will get them. Being tired at the end of the day doesn't make you a hard worker.
Re: this would never happen in america. (Score:3)
Old Russian joke:
American: foolish Russian. Because of my first amendment rights, I can stand in front of the White House and criticize the US president.
Russian: What are you talking about? I can do that too!
Ahh good! (Score:5, Insightful)
I was worried for a minute that there might be a discussion about a country other than the US on Slashdot. However no need to fear, the egocentric dipstick brigade is on it, making sure to try and steer any and all discussion back to America. I mean we can't possibly want to talk about the rest of the world, nobody is from there, nobody cares what happens. Instead let's make sure to focus any and all discussion on America. That's the only way!
Seriously, knock it the fuck off. There is a wider world out there, and some of that world visits Slashdot. They might be interested in some stories about thing other than the US. Heck, for that matter people in the US might be interested in stories about the rest of the world since it is all interconnected.
I get really tired of the ego brigade on /. that has to try and steer every single conversation back to the US. Story about Russia? Talk about how the US is worse and then rail on about that. Story about Canada? Talk about how it would be if the US did it and then rail on about that. No matter what the story, move the discussion back to the US.
Just stop it. If there's a topic about Russia, well let's talk about that. If that doesn't interest you, kindly keep your silence so that people can talk about it. If the NSA spying interests you, then comment in those discussions, of which there are many.
Slashdot is an American site and thus American centric in its reporting but it is not US exclusive. Stop trying to make it that way. Your ego can deal with something not being about the US once and awhile.
Anwar Al-Awlaki was not a blogger (Score:3)
He was a senior recruiter for Al Queda and actively involved in terrorist plots against the US and actively making propaganda for an organization at war with the United States. Our only mistake is that we didn't strip of his citizenship when he was caught by Yemen participating in an Al Queda plot to kidnap the US military attache. He was at large for 4 years, if he felt he was wrongly accused why not get a lawyer and arrange to turn himself in. Its not like he couldnt call the FBI anytime he wanted an arra
Re:this would never happen in america. (Score:5, Informative)
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They don't have sarcasm where you're from?
Re:this would never happen in america. (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet the newspaper in the US that publish details from Snowden's leaks are not being hauled into court.
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Shush, you! Don't ruin a good story about how the press is censored in the US.
And I love these books; "The Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis of YYYY" Um... Wait. Why are these books censored? Ah! These stories weren't censored, nobody gave a damn. Governments don't need to censor when the public is kept fat and lazy.
Re:this would never happen in america. (Score:5, Interesting)
There's no point for the administration to go fry big names like the NY Times or Washington Post when all they were doing is re-reporting material already obtained by foreign press.
Now imagine what would have happened if Snowden had provided his materials only to the NY Times. Oh, wait, we don't have to imagine. We know what would have happened because previous leakers did that, only to find the NYT was already under the thumb and they chose not to publish. In fact Snowden explicitly said he wasn't going to trust American media to publish things about the NSA because they had a history of self censorship in this regard, causing them huge embarrassment.
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And what else could he have done to get people aware? If he'd just gone up to a news organisation and said he had proof the government was spying on citizens but he couldn't show it to them, he'd have been politely turned away and laughed at behind his back. The documents are the proof - without them, he'd just another foil-hatter.
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also handed over (or sold) to China and Russia.
lol... Bollocks. I find it really weird that you would make shit like that up. I guess convincing people you're right is more important than being right.
"Evil men have no songs." (Score:2)
'How is it, then, that the Russians have songs?'
-- Nietzsche
That's a squirrley definition of free speech. (Score:5, Insightful)
In the US, free speech is a blacklist-based phenomenon. There's a few things that are illegal to say - like 'Fire' in the theater - for example. If it's not listed, it's probably fair game, and you can't be jailed for it. Thus; westboro baptists and illinois nazis.
In many places in the world, it seems like the definition of free speech refers to the fact that there's a government-approved whitelist - here are the things you are allowed to talk about/say, anything not on the list are disallowed and legal offenses. Anything that's not explicitly on the list (and often times, even if it is) is subject to prosecutions. Heck, it's standard in these places to claim that opposing political parties are, by their language alone, seditionists, and have them locked up. In part, this is why there's outrage against the US that we allow hate speech and open protest; in other countries, that requires a mandate by the government, explicit approval.
Even in western, supposedly enlightened countries, there are onerous restrictions; check out slander laws in England, Germany's stance on anything Nazi-related, or France's many, many restrictions - for example, it's illegal to criticize a public employee (though I have no idea if it's actually enforced).
Calling this 'free speech' is like calling tax laws in the US 'voluntary taxes'.
What we're describing here is not a "tightening grip on free speech". It's just "additional regulations" on a locked down system where participating is the exception, not the rule. The only thing free about it is that one is "free" to follow all the rules, or shut up.
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Free speech is the right to voice your opinion, and not to induce panic and harm people. There are no white/black lists, each country have just different understanding of what is covered by free speech rights. If you shout "Fire" in a theatre where is no fire, it is not free speech, but you want to harm people. You want that people panic and rush out of the theatre. How is that free speech? Likewise, slander is not free speech because you want to harm people. Your rights end where it starts to infringe on o
Don't worry (Score:2)
Russia is simply USA's future (Score:2, Insightful)
Music Please (Score:2)
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You don't know what you're talking about. Putin has been in the office of President of Russia or Prime minister for over 15 years. Is he authoritarian? yes. But next Stalin? Please.
By the time Stalin completed his first 15 years as the leader of Soviet communist party, he already managed to murder millions of Soviet people. Stalin's great purge of 1937, resulted in the murder of over 600,000 people while millions of people starved to their deaths in the Holodomor.
"Surgery of Thuggery" vs. the Intelligencia (Score:5, Insightful)
Putin remains very "popular". Hitler was "popular". 97% of people don't really need or use their freedom of speech to an extent that it threatens the establishment.
On a hopeful note, historically, Hitler's tightening control produced "brain drain" among his most talented scientists and engineers. Societies which resort to these kinds of controls usually fail to keep apace with modernization. It's the fallacy of "surgery of thuggery". When totalitarians intend to surgically intimidate just a few vocal intelligencia, their "tools" or administrative enforcers (gestapo) are too clumsy and over-reach, intimidating brilliant people in unintended manners. This same thing happens in the USA business regulatory environment, if a state government gives too much authority to its regulators, businesses move elsewhere.
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And why do you compare Putin with Hitler? Why does every authoritarian leader draw comparisons with Hitler?
Hitler rounded up millions of "undesirables", such as Jews, communists, and prisoners of war in concentration camps and had them murdered or starved to death. What was the figure, 10-12million people? He wrote that hideous book called Mein Kampf which was the manifest for everything he was going to do. I don't see any parallels with Putin here.
I think it is already happening (Score:2)
Russia will give us Internet pharmacy's and ugly porn.
Dangerous Internet (Score:2)
Workaround: Load balancing? (Score:2)
Say you have 100 different blogs with different names, different usernames for the admin, slightly different looks etc. but they all conveniently re-blog the same content. Next, you have a domain name that points to a load-balancing server which hosts no web content, but redirect the traffic so that none of these blogs hit the control quota. If one approaches the quota, the load-balancer will detect it and shut that particular blog down. A single-source DoS attack won't work against this system because that
Easy solution... (Score:2)
As opposed to the USA (Score:2)
This is a scary policy that is following the west.
Russia's affecting my buying decisions (Score:2)
Admittedly in this case there aren't any major differences in functionality, and we may end up with the Russian one after all if testing shows its interface is easier to use/train on, but it's the first time I recall actually looking into and co
Sydication - bring back BBSs! (Score:2)
"No, of course I don't have 3000 visitors a day! My site is automatically limited to 2500. It's funny though, the first 250 visitors every day take my posts and repost them on their sites. But that's their responsibility, not mine... but since my site has passed it's daily quota, here's links to sites with 'similar content'..."
Seriously. This is a stupid law.
We can easily just stop using blog 'websites', and instead post to public newsgroups. Or use RSS & other syndication & mirror tools.
A juggernaut going after a gnat (Score:2)
Finally, someone does something for US (Score:2)
After the US government doing so many things to encourage people to host services outside of America, Russia returns the favor. This could result in greater cooperation between the two peoples, as we can now cross-serve either other. You host our pirate search engines, we'll host your politics blog.
The UK is also Regulating larger Blogs (Score:4, Informative)
The UK also introduced regulation of larger commercial blogs that publish "news type" material, part of the recommendations of the Leveson enquiry into press standards. Large blogs have to sign up to a press regulator, if not they get fined. It does not matter where the Blog's servers are located, if someone downloads content in the UK, it is published it in the UK and they can be held responsible ("Downloading here can count as publication in the law.").
Links:
"Press regulation deal sparks fears of high libel fines for bloggers - Websites could have to pay exemplary damages if they don't sign up to new regulator, claim opponents of Leveson deal [theguardian.com] "
BBC News: Will websites/blogs etc be covered? [bbc.com]
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I bet Democrats look at Putin with envy.
Maybe the "conservative" ones [newrepublic.com], but it shows much more strongly inside the republican sect.
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I don't think I'll ever understand why anybody ever distrusts an article when the news outlet specifically calls out who said what, which is exactly what Fox did.
Honestly, people who do that shit are no better than the news organizations that they lambaste on a daily basis. I mean fuck, Fox News even paints republicans in more of a negative light in that article.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... [huffingtonpost.com]
http://blogs.rollcall.com/wgdb... [rollcall.com]
http://www.reuters.com/article... [reuters.com]
There, you happy?
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I'd say you're wasting your time in Russia, and worse probably endangering yourself in the process.
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It could be worse. They could be Naked Russian Nazi Pirates and I don't know about you but have you seen the majority of Russian Women? Yikes!
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It could be worse. They could be Naked Russian Nazi Pirates and I don't know about you but have you seen the majority of Russian Women? Yikes!
What, they aren't all exceptionally hot tennis players? Is my TV lying to me?
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It could be worse. They could be Naked Russian Nazi Pirates and I don't know about you but have you seen the majority of Russian Women? Yikes!
What, they aren't all exceptionally hot tennis players?
Of course they aren't, don't be so naive!
Some of them are Milla Jovovich!
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She's Ukrainian.
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3 points:
1 - When she was born in 1975, Ukraine was still part of the USSR.
2 - Her parents immigrated to the US in 1980, and she is an American citizen.
3 - Lighten up, Francis.
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Seriously, dude, you're taking this admittedly weak attempt at comedy far too seriously. That's the last thing I'm going to say about it.
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It could be worse. They could be Naked Russian Nazi Pirates and I don't know about you but have you seen the majority of Russian Women? Yikes!
What, they aren't all exceptionally hot tennis players?
Of course they aren't, don't be so naive!
Some of them are Milla Jovovich!
Wait.. the net says she is Ukranian born, so that makes her Russian now, right?
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It could be worse. They could be Naked Russian Nazi Pirates and I don't know about you but have you seen the majority of Russian Women? Yikes!
What, they aren't all exceptionally hot tennis players?
Of course they aren't, don't be so naive!
Some of them are Milla Jovovich!
Wait.. the net says she is Ukranian born, so that makes her Russian now, right?
Well, since she was born in 1975, and Ukraine was part of the USSR in 1975...
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Except, now the mere act of making a blog post or a Twitter comment or a Facebook update will be illegal if you have over 3,000 followers, are somewhat anonymous (i.e. use a screen name and not your real name), and don't register. Then, since you've done something illegal, the government will have "just cause" to track you down and arrest you. Never assume that you can't be tracked down by anyone ever. All it takes is one slip and the government will have their "dangerous blogger."
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On the flip side of that, you can expect to see a ton of new Russian-language blogs spring up in "Iowa".
Funny how the internet works like that. You can only ban anonymity or censor certain types of content to the extent that you can lock down every single point of access.
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It's not the end of blogging in Russia. What it means is that Russians who want to blog will blog on sites hosted outside the country, where all traffic is run through SSL.