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
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
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.
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.