Russia Uses New Internet Censorship Bill To Silence Prominent Reporters Who Criticized The Government

from the for-the-children! dept

Thu, Feb 14th 2013 3:37am — Mike Masnick

Last summer, Russia passed an internet blacklist bill which required ISPs to censor certain sites. At the time, of course, Russian officials insisted it would be used to "protect the children" from "harmful information," including child porn, suicide instructions, and pro-drug propaganda. They insisted it would not go beyond that. Of course, within weeks, a popular blogging site, LiveJournal, was censored, followed by the Russian equivalent of Wikipedia.

And now they're targeting journalists as well. Access is reporting that added to the blacklist has been a site used by prominent free speech / civil liberties reporters in Russia who have been critical of the government. The government claims (of course) that they put the site on the blacklist due to "child pornography elements," but Access points out that rather than just removing such content, they've blocked access to the entire site, which is notable given the usage by critical reporters.

At least two prominent journalists host their blogs on LJRossia.org: Andrei Malgin, a journalist who has been very critical of the government and hosts a mirror site at LJR, and Vladimir Pribylovsky, who has been targeted for publishing a large database of government misdeeds and for disclosing official documents that expose corruption.

Once you've set up tools that enable censorship, you know they'll eventually be used for censorship.

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Filed Under: censorship, critics, free speech, internet, russia

22 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 14 Feb 2013 @ 3:55am

democracy has become a dirty word and more so-called democratic countries are following the same path as Russia and other similar-minded countries. the reason is obvious. governments are doing whatever they can to stifle criticism. they are doing whatever they can to remove what freedom and privacy people have left. they are doing whatever they can to obtain and maintain complete surveillance on the ordinary people (the rich, the famous and the powerful are, of course, exempt!). they are doing whatever they can to stop people in one country from communicating with those in another country, particularly when there are conflicts happening. yet all these 'democratic countries' condemn Russia, China, N.Korea etc, whilst doing the exact same thing, ruling with as iron a grip as they can get away with!!
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Shadow Dragon (profile), 14 Feb 2013 @ 4:02am

Thin Skin Government
Oh I find out pathetic.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Feb 2013 @ 4:37am

Re:
They just want to go back to the good old days.
btw, are/were there any real democracies?
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vegetaman (profile), 14 Feb 2013 @ 4:45am

Leaders change but the oppression remains the same.
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Ninja (profile), 14 Feb 2013 @ 5:01am

And our usual critics keep being intellectually dishonest and yelling that no system will ever be abused by the Governments. Riiiight.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Feb 2013 @ 5:22am

Re:
Child porn has been censored in the US for years. We've managed to not censor wikipedia.

Article is nothing but FUD. As usual.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Feb 2013 @ 5:31am

Don't tell me! I know this one! They placated the people into accepting censorship to stop child pornography. Right?
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Feb 2013 @ 5:40am

Re: Re:
If only you applied half the criticism towards the government and your copyright overlords that you do towards Techdirt...
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Feb 2013 @ 5:47am

Re:
As the leaders are childish when it comes to dealing with criticism,it cause involuntary reddening of the face, therefore it should be banned as pornography.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Feb 2013 @ 7:18am

Re: Re:
The US censors lots stuff that not child porn, and not just in the United States as you seem to think, but worldwide via root DNS abuse. Look up Moo.com and Dajaz1.
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Valkor (profile), 14 Feb 2013 @ 8:04am

Re: Re:
Depends on your definition of "real". Athens was the most directly democratic, but was limited to certain males. Direct democracy really breaks down for a lot of reasons in large groups. Representative democracy works better when small groups of people elect representatives than when large groups do.
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Ninja (profile), 14 Feb 2013 @ 8:08am

Re: Re:
It's illegal. It's very, very different from being censored. I'm not sure of what was seen in that platform but regardless shutting the entire site down because one or two users uploaded is akin to shutting down a road because one or two drivers have been caught trafficking drugs.

You seem to be confused about intentional and accidental censoring. For instance Dajaz1 was censored accidentally (and the US failed to fix it when it was thrown in their face). Regardless of what kind of censorship goes on the simple fact that the tools can cause censorship should serve as deterrent to putting such tools in place.

Also, Wikipedia is not a good example here ;)
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RyanNerd (profile), 14 Feb 2013 @ 8:42am

Not suprising
In Soviet Russia the Internet surfs you.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 14 Feb 2013 @ 10:05am

Re: Re:
Child porn has been censored in the US for years. We've managed to not censor wikipedia.

Very, very different. The content is illegal and the government can go after and shut down the actual content. They cannot and do not have a blacklist blocking access. In fact, when they tried that, it lost in court.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Feb 2013 @ 2:04pm

So, basically, the Russian government can shut down any website it wants to by claiming it contains child pornography. Posting of actual pornography by government agents to cement the claim completely optional.
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Anonymous, 14 Feb 2013 @ 2:23pm

Re: Re: Re:
"For instance, Dajaz1 was censored accidentally". Uh-huh. Do you really believe that?!
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Anonymous, 14 Feb 2013 @ 2:28pm

Re: Re: Re:
"Child porn has been censored in the US for years". I wonder what part of "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" the government doesn't understand. But then, when has the constitution stopped the government from doing ANYTHING?
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Anonymous Coward, 14 Feb 2013 @ 7:12pm

really, they normally just shoot them.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Feb 2013 @ 7:57am

it isn't censorship, thier idea of free speech isn't your idea
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Feb 2013 @ 7:58am

Re:
The US isn't a "Democratic" country, it is a "Constitutional Replublic"
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Anonymous Coward, 15 Feb 2013 @ 5:09pm

Russia always comes across as a bit of a basket case.
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zeenarg, 27 Mar 2013 @ 4:16am

...
We don't have democracies and didn't. Our goverment just make see that Russia is good.
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