Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Russia’s state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor will take punitive measures against a string of foreign IT companies, including TikTok, Telegram, Zoom, Discord and Pinterest.
In a statement on Friday, Roskomnadzor said its actions were in response to failure by the companies to remove content that it had flagged as illegal, and the punitive measures would remain in place until the firms complied with its demands.
The regulator did not specify what measures would be taken.
Russia has repeatedly threatened to impose fines on IT companies – including Google – that it has said violated harsh new laws criminalising the spreading of so-called “false information” about the Russian military.
Russia has branded its war on Ukraine a “special military operation”. In March, Roskomnadzor warned that referring to the military campaign as an “invasion”, “attack” or “declaration of war” will lead to websites being blocked.
On Tuesday, Russian courts imposed a two million rouble (around $33,000) fine on the US-based live streaming service Twitch, and an 11 million rouble ($179,000) fine on the messenger service Telegram, for violating military censorship laws.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Opportunist on Monday August 22 2022, @07:16AM
Is that why they need so many short busses as supply trucks?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2022, @08:08AM (1 child)
Soon their citizens will have to use the services Twotch and Telepogrom instead, when Twitch & Telegram exit.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Username on Monday August 22 2022, @12:36PM
That's probably a good thing. Hopefully it happens in the US as well.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Monday August 22 2022, @08:52AM
No computer, no problem!
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday August 22 2022, @09:44AM (1 child)
So is it OK if someone calls it “absolutely not an invasion”?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Monday August 22 2022, @09:58AM
I wonder what they're going to call the absolutely no invasion of the next country. It's not a war but an "ordinary military operation"? So Ukraine can feel "special"?
(Score: 1, Troll) by unauthorized on Monday August 22 2022, @09:47AM (25 children)
To me it seems quite obvious that the Russian government's goal here is to justify implementing information control for Russian users. The demands made were obviously never going to be met but from a realpolitik standpoint it makes sense they would make them anyway in order to justify blocking these services in Russia. Despite what some pundits want you to believe, the Russian president is not a dictator and does require public support to remain in power.
All this 'information war' seems to be nothing but western espionage agencies conducting their own information war against their own citizens, which shouldn't be a surprise considering this is coming from the head honcho of the British equivalent of the NSA. Accusing the enemy of doing what you're doing is a classic and effective disinformation strategy.
Do not trust the Five Eyes. They are the bad guys.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Username on Monday August 22 2022, @12:42PM (9 children)
Yeah, i find it odd the west gets to call their invasions special operations, but when Russia does it, it's some kind of soviet kgb nonsense.
It's the same shit here as it is there.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Monday August 22 2022, @12:52PM (4 children)
Nobody here takes the verbal euphemisms seriously. And let us note that Russia did get away with calling their invasion a special operation.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 22 2022, @01:28PM (3 children)
Uhhhh, I think the deck of cards you're playing with is missing several cards. Maybe you should familiarize yourself with some Soviet/Russian jokes. This is a starting point, you can do better if you look https://www.youngpioneertours.com/cias-favourite-soviet-jokes/ [youngpioneertours.com]
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 23 2022, @12:47PM (2 children)
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 23 2022, @01:50PM (1 child)
What do you suggest for consequences? Nuking Moscow? We've already gone through the gamut of "sanctions" against Russia. What more consequences do you suppose we can offer? Maybe we can get the International Court to take away his birthday, and exile him to Russia? President Biden can use ever harsher impotent threats? We can quadruple the present deficit to fund more weapons for Ukraine? What consequences do you want to see here?
Geopolitics. You're familiar with the word? On the world stage, there are a number of actors, each of who want to increase their own power and wealth. China and India are major actors. Each of them sees advantages to supporting Russia, to some degree. Neither is willing to ally themselves with Russia at the moment, but they are each happy to play Russia against the US, looking for advantages in the play. Sanctions or not, there is a lot of trade between those three countries, which is keeping Russia afloat, if not entirely solvent.
Then there is all the rest of Asia, and all of Africa.
If we understand that the US and Europe aren't Kings of the World, we can be a lot less frustrated over the fact that we cannot force Russia to do much of anything.
Consequences, you say. What consequences do you propose? Our worst consequences to date have only served to build stronger ties between Russia and India, and between Russia and China. Oh yeah, Turkey. Officially they are part of NATO, but Turkey has cozied up to Russia behind the scenes. And, Germany. They want so badly to hurt Russia, but they can't cut the dino-fuel umbilical. How hard do you want to push that nonsense?
Did I mention the word impotent? But you're trying to talk consequences. The two words don't really belong in the same discussion.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 23 2022, @02:29PM
That seems entirely reasonable. I foresee no negative consequences whatsoever from such an action.
But having said that, I'll just note here that this started with some whining from Username who thought there was something wrong with "but when Russia does it, it's some kind of soviet kgb nonsense" which I think we can all agree is far more dire than merely nuking Moscow.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Monday August 22 2022, @07:56PM (3 children)
The problem is not Russia calling it a special operation. The problem is Russia going after people who call it what it is.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Username on Monday August 22 2022, @09:25PM (2 children)
Again, how is it different than what the US does? How many people did the party get banned from twitter, facebook, etc for "misinformation" aka facts?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 23 2022, @12:10AM
Getting banned from Twitter is like getting banned from a burning building.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday August 23 2022, @05:49AM
To my knowledge, none. If you have different information, well, tell so, instead of asking suggestive questions.
And to pre-counter a likely counter argument: I didn't claim that nobody was ever banned from those platforms. Obviously there were such people. But the decision to ban them was done by the platform, not "the party". And I'm pretty sure those bans were not for telling facts the government didn't like.
Anyway, this story is not about people getting banned from Twitter, Facebook, etc., but about threats to the platforms themselves.
Oh, and about the people daring to call the war a war in Russia: Russia actually puts them in jail. Which definitely is worse than just being banned from a social media platform.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 4, Touché) by khallow on Monday August 22 2022, @12:50PM (14 children)
And yet, "the bad guys" didn't invade Ukraine. Looks like you left someone out.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2022, @01:50PM (8 children)
No, the Five Eyes like to watch Russia lose a war, then invade the same country, so they can lose their own war, worse than Russia did. We'll probably invade Ukraine around 2029.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2022, @02:04PM (7 children)
> We'll probably invade Ukraine around 2029.
Or invite Ukraine to join NATO... After Putin is gone any objections from Russia should fade away.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2022, @03:24PM (6 children)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-says-putin-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule [theguardian.com]
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday August 22 2022, @07:40PM (2 children)
Interesting (and modded as such) - but it may be that the Robertson statement was diplo-speak for "Russia must not be a dictatorship"
> ... NATO has made clear that candidates for membership must meet the following criteria:
> Uphold democracy, including tolerance for diversity;
> Be progressing toward a market economy;
> Have their military forces under firm civilian control;
> Be good neighbors and respect the sovereignty of other nations; and
> Work toward interoperability with NATO forces.
https://1997-2001.state.gov/regions/eur/fs_970815members.html [state.gov]
(Score: 1) by therainingmonkey on Tuesday August 23 2022, @04:33PM (1 child)
These criteria are applied selectively, see for example Turkey.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday August 24 2022, @08:26AM
It's a fair point. One may argue that Turkey is less not-democratic than Russia, for example it scores about 10 points higher on the "democracy index"
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 23 2022, @12:26AM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 23 2022, @08:45AM (1 child)
It's a historical curiosity, from a time when relations between Russia and the West were much friendlier.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 23 2022, @12:37PM
Funny how this "historical curiosity" was used somehow as a rebuttal to a claim that Ukraine would join NATO at some point (rather than some purported invasion by "Five Eyes"). Perhaps one or more AC ought to say what they think/believe rather than bullshit around.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by unauthorized on Monday August 22 2022, @02:43PM (4 children)
No, but they did invade Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Vietnam, etc, currently bomb Somalia in a "special operation" that totally isn't a war and of course let's not forget actively aid the Saudi in their "intervention" in Yemen which is also totally not a war.
Would the addendum of "too" satisfy your pedantry? I left out all the other national organizations which have since joined the Five Eyes (spoiler: there are more than five eyes now), the FIS and any other "intelligence" agency which engages special operations, actively seeks to propagandize their own people and all the other shady crap the CIA and NSA are known for.
(Score: 0, Troll) by khallow on Monday August 22 2022, @09:15PM (3 children)
No. You're still lumping together a bunch of lightweights with Russia.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by corey on Monday August 22 2022, @10:26PM
And Iraq, Afghanistan, etc are very different cases to Ukraine. On one hand you have totalitarian, dictatorship without support of the people, on the other you have a government doing no harm to its citizens and are overwhelmingly supported by such. Apples and oranges. But picking apart whataboutism arguments is always like this and takes too much time to mount a succinct and quick response.
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Tuesday August 23 2022, @12:07PM (1 child)
Bruh, my entire argument was premised on the fact that the stated IT platforms are were always extremely unlikely to abide by the Russian argument and that the western espionage agencies are known bad actors. You're the one who brought up the invasion and implied that the Russian invasion makes them the bad guys in juxtaposition to NATO.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 23 2022, @12:43PM
Indeed and I was right to so imply - because it's true. When we ignore the genuine bad actors just to pick on favored targets we're condoning those acts of evil.
Here, keep in mind a few things. First, Russia is a democracy by law. What Putin has done is break the fundamental laws of Russia. In particular, the "Russian argument" is not Russia's business. It's not their place to police platforms, particularly to remove truth from them. And now, he's created immense suffering in Ukraine through the most outrageous breaking of international law so far this century - yes, that includes the Iraqi invasion.
Yes, there are deep problems with the intelligence agencies out there. But why do those concerns seem to come out every time Russia commits another act of evil?
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Monday August 22 2022, @10:11AM (5 children)
Its not my fault that Russia is no longer part of the global banking system.
fsck putin!!!
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 5, Funny) by Opportunist on Monday August 22 2022, @10:46AM (4 children)
Doubt that's gonna fix much, I have a hunch it's not the file system that's corrupt.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday August 22 2022, @01:51PM (1 child)
You put too much faith in the system.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Monday August 22 2022, @05:26PM
Ok, lemme rephrase that: I don't think it's the file system that's corrupt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 22 2022, @03:12PM (1 child)
Also that would take forever. Better try:
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Wednesday August 24 2022, @10:30AM
I'd have another command in mind altogether. We'd first have to find out his PID, though.