Stories from RuNet Echo from October, 2011
Moldova, Russia: Controversial Russian Blogger Escapes Prosecution in Moldova
Russian blogger Eduard Bagirov was detained in Chisinau, Moldova, this June and charged with organizing the April 2009 post-election riots there. He was released and placed under house arrest but soon escaped to Russia. While some Russian bloggers question Bagirov's motives and integrity, many seem to trust him.
Russia: 7 Temporarily Detained During the President's Meeting with Journalism Students
7 journalism students (among others @kichanova, @rise_rebel and @ave_katerina) were detained during the meeting of the president Medvedev at the Journalism department of the Moscow State University,Vitaliy Shushkevich tweets [ru] (also see photo [ru]). They were temporarily detained for contemplating a political action and were released only after Medvedev had left the...
Russia: Newspaper Leaks Plans to Discredit Anti-Corruption Blogger
“United Russia” had ordered a massive plan (worth of ~320,000 US dollars) to discredit anti-corruption blogger Alexey Navalny, Novaya Gazeta writes [ru]. The campaign might include compromising footage with Navalny's look-alike involved in some illegal and/or immoral activities.
Russia: Photoblogger Launches New Citizen Media Agency
Ilya Varlamov, popular photoblogger, officially launches [ru] Ridus.ru, news agency dedicated to the citizen media in Russia. Its ‘special projects’ section [ru] tells about new and already existing civil society movements that deal with environmental issues, traffic violations, illegal development in the historic parts of the cities, freedom of photography...
Russia: Networked Volunteers Save Lives of Missing Children
In September 2010, 4-year-old Liza and her aunt went missing in the forest and were found dead. Liza's volunteer rescuers decided to establish a network called "Liza Alert" whose members would engage immediately once a child was lost.
Russia: the First Twitter Account Officially Registered as Media Outlet
Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecoms and Communications (RosKomNadzor) officially registered [ru] Twitter account of a microblogger Denis Plenin (@Dplenin) as the first mass media outlet on the platform.
Russia: Facebook Bots Massively Vote for Putin
Russian online magazine “Slon” exposes [ru] significant increase in activity of Facebook fake accounts who vote for Putin in online opinion polls. The bots are active not only on Facebook but also on online media websites that allow to use Facebook profiles for voting.
Russia: Soccer Team Qualifies for Euro 2012 – “On To Ukraine and Poland!!!”
The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship is referred to by some as 'Polkraine 2012' since it will be held in both Poland and Ukraine. Russia officially qualified with a 6-0 win over Andorra; citizen media has captured the popular perception of the qualifying round.
Russia: The Future of LiveJournal's Network Effect
A newspaper article titled "A Half-Dead Journal," which analyzed the drop in LiveJournal's traffic within the last nine months, provoked a heated discussion on the structure and the future of the Russian blogosphere.
Russia: Investigative Journalists Expose Security Services Monitoring Internet
Andrey Soldatov and Irina Borogan, famous investigative journalists, describe [ru] software and methods used by Russian security services to monitor the Internet. Journalists argue that while Federal Security Service (FSB) can easily monitor Russian social networks (like Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki and others), it has problems with monitoring foreign platforms (like Facebook and...
Russia: LiveJournal Loses 23 Percent of the Audience in 2011
Vedomosti analyses [ru] serious drop (23-25 percent in 2011) in LiveJournal traffic. While most analytics agree that the decrease is connected to DDoS attacks on the RuNet's main political platform as well as interface improvements in Facebook and Google+, LiveJournal representative explain the negative dynamics with ‘summer seasonal prevalence.’
Russia: Putin Gets Twitter Hashtag for His Birthday
#CпасибоПутинуЗаЭто (“Thanks to Putin for This”) hashtag that resembles the Soviet “Thanks to the party for this” became a “Twitter sensation” according to the Wall Street Journal and a “Twitter storm,” according to The Moscow News. The campaign that was started [ru] by a pro-Kremlin blogger Vladimir Burmatov as a way...
Russia: Deceased Yukos Lawyer's Last Interview
The New Times publishes the last interview [ru] with Vasily Aleksanyan, former Vice President of Yukos oil company, who died on October 3, 2011 due to AIDS complications after his release from jail. “They're terrifying me every day,” confessed Aleksanyan saying that police didn't stop abusing him. Bloggers widely discuss the...
Russia: Personal Information Leaked, Who's To Blame?
On October 3, several Russian citizens' documents, including financial statements and passport numbers, were posted on the website rusleaks.com. Netizens are debating who is to blame.
Russia: State-Funded Blogging School Opens in Chelyabinsk
Svetlana Gladkova of Profy comments on the launch of the first public blogging school in Chelyabinsk, Russia: “This state-funded not-for-profit nature of the school is particularly interesting because it looks like the authorities in Russia have not only realized the power of social media but have decided to influence it...
