By banning VPN apps and pressuring tech platforms, the Kremlin is accelerating its long-standing effort to build a tightly controlled sovereign internet—cutting citizens off from the global web.
Paywall Free: https://archive.is/DSNXa
Controlling the Internet this way is brilliant from an authoritarian standpoint. To have a revolution you need motivation and communication. Can’t be motivated to change your government if you’re not informed and you can’t organize in great enough numbers if you can’t communicate. Take note America.
We need a signal for the revolution:
Three small bombings, then Three large bombings, then There small bombings. (SOS, or in this case, Slay Our Slavemasters)
⚔️ It’s time, viva la revolution!
Let’s see if they can pull it off. Russians are extremely well versed in tech, and quite a resilient bunch. And the internet had already arrived at peak maturity when they retired to fence it in, making it way harder than in China where they managed to contain everything before it was too widespread.
That’s a nice, but wrong image.
Russia has had SORM, various versions, since 1999. Yes, it wasn’t in any way as ambitious as the Chinese great firewall, but the processes of FSB interacting with ISPs and the legal base and even some necessary procedures were always there. Now they have TSPU, apparently a few recent widespread problems were caused by it being tested.
They probably want it to be just as little known or noticeable as SORM, so that most Russians would still have the false feeling of security. Russia was past the point of no return somewhere around 2003, but in year 2012 Russian opposition mostly still thought it’s not. Because these people, however horrible they are, do things comprehensively. They never let the mask slip until their victim, the whole country in some cases, has no way out.
I wonder how successful they were over many years in selecting and killing the best people Russia has. How many, how precisely chosen, and whether the country will ever recover.
This is just so sad, not even accounting for the politics. Like, imagine not being able to watch your favorite Youtuber, or a popular tv show/movie, just because your leaders said no.
I’ve watched a lot of great content over my life, and I can’t imagine the timeline where I missed out on it, just because I happened to live within a specific area on a map, borders arbitrarily drawn by people.
People still thinking Putin hasn’t finished anything important in controlling Russia before year 2002.
He can execute and eat people on TV now, any popular reaction will be predicted or detected and neutralized, silently at that.
Maybe he is just very thorough in things he knows, which are KGB work, so he defends against improbable things now - like Russians really organizing something via Internet.
There is a component of sadism, so maybe he wants to actually be able to do something Bokassa-like and reduce connectivity to compensate in security.
Or maybe he’s getting so old that other people are making many decisions, and they don’t understand why he mostly let the Internet be before.
He needs as much propaganda (read lies) to stay standing…
For example when he decides to nuke Ukraine because he can’t conquer it, he must have the Russian population convinced it was because of defending/retribution for a nuclear attack by the west. The only way to do that is to minimize information coming from outside.Look at random interviews with Russian people on the countryside and some in the cities, they are deeply brainwashed and indoctrinated from only hearing state messaging about how the west is outright evil. Those people are unable to revolt.
For example when he decides to nuke Ukraine because he can’t conquer it, he must have the Russian population convinced it was because of defending/retribution for a nuclear attack by the west. The only way to do that is to minimize information coming from outside.
Look at random interviews with Russian people on the countryside and some in the cities, they are deeply brainwashed and indoctrinated from only hearing state messaging about how the west is outright evil.
No, this bullshit about “minimizing information coming from outside” is because you think Russians have propaganda and you don’t have propaganda.
This is always wrong, in any place and time. You have different propaganda than Russians, and seeing that difference from interviews and such the conclusion you get is that they are brainwashed and thus decide “not to revolt”, while you are able to see clearly, this is bullshit even when so vaguely described, in fact they “can’t revolt” because any attempt will be prevented before anyone hears of it. Looks can be deceiving.
You are also, in fact, “unable to revolt”, you just 1) think that you don’t need to, so did Russians during his first two terms, 2) don’t look too closely at your ability to do that, it’s easy to say you can always do something you never do, well, prove you can first, 3) are treated differently at this point, because you are in a different place in this system which includes Russia and the West, interconnected well enough.
The West is outright evil for a Russian for many reasons, starting with helping to build Yeltsin’s and Putin’s regime and approving of Putin’s reelections when there were widespread protests in Russia.
It’s not about information from the outside, it’s about information from the inside to the inside, and a bit about information from the inside to the outside, if there are going to be really bad things.
Restricting access to information, what a way to control the general population.
Americans so jelly right now.
Removed by mod
…and for a time, it was good.
