Kevin Rothrock · September, 2012

Latest posts by Kevin Rothrock from September, 2012

Russia: Nation's Top Blogger Headed to Prison?

RuNet Echo

The criminal investigation targeting Russia's most prominent oppositionist blogger, Alexey Navalny, is heating up. Viacheslav Opalev, the former director of a logging firm in Kirov, has confessed [ru] to participating in...

29 September 2012

Russia: The Kostin Report & the Trojan Horse of American ICT

RuNet Echo

Earlier this week, the media got a sneak peek at a new report on the foreign penetration of the RuNet and the potential manipulation of the country's future elections. The Internet's growing popularity is transforming it into a political weapon: a weapon that is increasingly guarded by American, albeit private, media firms.

28 September 2012

Russia: Omsk Telecom Temporarily Bans YouTube

RuNet Echo

For roughy seven hours earlier today, Rostelecom's customers in Omsk were unable to access YouTube. The short-lived ban prompted a flurry of panicked online activity, including urgent tweets [ru] from the city's...

18 September 2012

Russia: Ksenia Sobchak's Civil Platform Candidacy

RuNet Echo

Earlier today, the Central Elections Committee officially registered a bevy of candidates for the coming elections of the first Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition. Among today's new entries to the General Civil category was socialite and opposition activist Ksenia Sobchak.

18 September 2012

Russia: Forecasts for the Protest Movement's Elections

RuNet Echo

On October 20, the new "Central Elections Committee" will hold elections to select 45 individuals to form the first "Coordinating Council of the Russian Opposition." When this process is complete, the protest movement will have a representative body for the first time, providing a powerful institution that at last formalizes opposition leaders' legitimacy in Russian politics.

16 September 2012

Russia: Governors’ LiveJournals Ranked

RuNet Echo

Writing in his own LiveJournal, Sergei Nikitskii (the director of Governors.Ru) ranked [ru] the LJ accounts of Russia's 13 blogging governors. Kirovskaia oblast Governor Nikita Belykh [ru], a former oppositionist politician, scored highest...

3 September 2012