The State of Affairs in Russia

[Syt]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/russian-social-media-ceo-quits-flees-country

RUSSIAN SOCIAL MEDIA CEO QUITS, FLEES COUNTRY

MOSCOW (AP) — The founder of Russia's leading social media network — a wunderkind often described as Russia's Mark Zuckerberg — has left his post as CEO and fled the country as cronies of President Vladimir Putin have made steady inroads into the company's ownership.

The slow-motion ouster of Pavel Durov from the network known as VKontakte, or "In Contact," is the latest sign that independent media outlets in Russia have become increasingly imperiled.

Although months in the making, the loss of Durov's leadership in VKontakte means that the space for free speech on the Russian web could shrink even further.

Users on VKontakte were even spreading jokes this week that the new nickname for the "In Contact" website should be "In Censorship."

As one of his final acts of defiance, Durov posted online last week what he said were documents from the security services, demanding personal details from 39 Ukraine-linked groups on VKontakte, also known as VK.

Kremlin pressure on VK has been accompanied by increasing enforcement of Russia's law against extremism, which took some prominent opposition and pro-Ukraine sites off the web in March.

On Tuesday, the Russian parliament passed a law requiring social media websites to keep their servers in Russia and save all information about their users for at least half a year. The same law, which will go into effect in August if signed by Putin, gave bloggers the same legal status — and responsibilities — as media outlets, making them more vulnerable to accusations of libel or extremism.

Since the protests began in Ukraine, Putin and much of Russian media have amplified the patriotic rhetoric, proclaiming the need to secure Russia from enemies both foreign and domestic. In a televised call-in show last week, Putin equated those critical of Kremlin policy in Ukraine with Bolshevik revolutionaries who rooted for Russia's defeat in World War I, and discussions about the country's traitorous Fifth Column have become the fare of state television.

VK, which largely resembles an older version of Facebook, attracts about 60 million users daily, primarily from countries in the former Soviet Union, vastly outstripping Facebook's reach in the region. It played an instrumental role in bringing hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets in late 2011 in the wake of widely manipulated parliamentary elections, and it has played a part in drawing crowds to the Kiev protest movement that helped oust Ukraine's pro-Russian president in February.

"There's been a trend that started with the protests of December 2011, when the authorities started fearing the crowd and especially the online crowd," said Anton Nossik, Russia's leading Internet entrepreneur. "The pressure of censorship is mounting on Russian websites from lawmakers who think that the Internet is their foe."

The 29-year-old Durov has cultivated a reputation as a rebel willing to stand up to Kremlin pressure, ostentatiously refusing to shut down VK groups linked to the Russian opposition movement or to give out personal information on its leaders.

He also has become known for more eccentric stunts, like throwing paper airplanes made of 5,000 ruble notes (about $140 each) out of his office window, or posting a picture of his middle finger online after breaking up a major deal with a pro-Kremlin investor.

Since opening in 2006, VK has thrived on the same devil-may-care reputation as its founder. While much of the website's success was thanks to Facebook's sluggish adaptation to the Russian market, VK cemented its status as a Russian staple by hosting thousands of pirated video and music files, which users can watch for free.

It didn't take long for VK to attract the attention of investors as well as the government. In 2010, one major investor who was friendly with Durov handed his stake in the company over to Mail.ru Group, a holding company owned by Russia's richest man and Putin crony Alisher Usmanov

That move was followed by a large sell-off by Durov's old allies in April 2013 to UCP, a company reportedly owned by Igor Sechin, the chief of Russian oil giant Rosneft and a member of Putin's inner circle.

That left Durov himself, who only learned of the deal after it had been signed, as the last remaining holdout in the company ownership. He stayed on as CEO, but increasingly found himself in standoffs with its new stakeholders.

"A shareholder war started," said Nikolai Kononov, who wrote the book "Durov's Code" about VK. "It seems that Durov already understood at that moment that he should sell his shares. But at the same time, he wanted to preserve the project he built, as well as his reputation. Hence why it's taken so long."

That same month, a criminal investigation was opened into Durov's alleged participation in a hit-and-run incident with a St. Petersburg police officer — a case that Durov's supporters said was fabricated and linked to political pressure on the organization.

In June 2013, the case against Durov was quietly closed, but the message it sent was clear. In January, he sold his remaining 12 percent share in the company to Ilya Tavrin, another businessman linked to Usmanov. He also moved to diversify his portfolio outside Russia: With the help of his brother, he developed the messenger service Telegram, a Berlin-based company that he marketed as a completely hack-resistant communication tool, impenetrable even to the prying eyes of the National Security Agency.

If Durov wanted to develop Telegram and cultivate a name for himself as an uncompromising businessman abroad, that would mean keeping VK free of Kremlin influence as long as he was CEO of the company. Kononov said.

But Durov's timing couldn't have been worse: After Putin returned to the presidency in 2012 amid the large anti-Kremlin street protests, he tried to consolidate his power by passing a series of laws clamping down on the opposition.

Many deemed social media, which had provided a platform for protest leaders, a likely next casualty. This spring, the Livejournal blog of opposition leader and anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny was wiped off the web. For VK, which continued to allow groups in support of Navalny or Ukraine's protest movement to exist, it appeared it would only be a matter of time before its pro-Kremlin investors would start cracking down.

Durov's exit from the company was drawn out and chaotic. After selling his shares in January, Durov posted a message April 1 that he was quitting the company — only to say two days later it had been an April Fool's joke.

On Tuesday, he said he had been fired from the company and only found out through the media. One of the pro-Kremlin stakeholders claimed Durov had signed his own resignation letter a month ago and never withdrew it, while another insisted that Durov had no right to quit. Durov is being sued by one of the stakeholders, UCP, which accuses him of diverting money and programming talent from VK and using them to develop Telegram instead.

Durov told the technology magazine Techcrunch that he had left Russia and had no plans to return in the near future.

"In this way, today VKontakte will be transferred to the full control of Igor Sechin and Alisher Usmanov," he wrote on his VK page Monday night. "Under the conditions in Russia something like this was probably inevitable, but I am happy that we held out for seven and a half years. We did a lot."

[alfred russel]

RUSSIAN SOCIAL MEDIA CEO QUITS, FLEES COUNTRY

I've seen this one before. He is going to later get caught in Russia and detained, where he will meet Edward Snowden, and despite initial racial friction will become friends. Snowden will finally admit to himself that Russia isn't so great and he wants to leave, and they will try to escape together.

[Malthus]

RUSSIAN SOCIAL MEDIA CEO QUITS, FLEES COUNTRY

I've seen this one before. He is going to later get caught in Russia and detained, where he will meet Edward Snowden, and despite initial racial friction will become friends. Snowden will finally admit to himself that Russia isn't so great and he wants to leave, and they will try to escape together.

We eagerly await the screenplay!

[Savonarola]

And there goes 2 Live Crew's opportunity to be goodwill ambassadors:

RUSSIAN LAW CENSORS SWEARING IN THE ARTS

The move is the latest in a series of laws aimed at stifling free speech in the country

May 6, 2014 10:24AM ET

by Lisa De Bode @lisadebode

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a law censoring the use of curse words in the arts — the latest in a series of measures aimed at restricting freedom of speech and intimidating activists critical of his government.

The law – which affects books, movies, music and more – has far reaching consequences for Russian artists and cultural institutions, which face fines of $70 and $1,400, respectively, for each offense, the BBC reported.

The measure will be enforced from July 1, but which specific curse words will be censored has not been disclosed. It is in line with previous attempts to crack down on the freedom of expression.

In 2012, members of the punk protest group Pussy Riot were arrested for performing a song deemed offensive in Moscow's main cathedral. It is unclear how the new law will affect the name of the Russian collective. An email for response from Pyotr Verzilov, the group's unoffical spokesman was not answered.

Russian artists have responded with both criticism and shock. Some of the nation's most well-known poets and playwrights use curse words prolifically — from classical Alexander Pushkin to contemporary post-modernist Vladimir Sorokin, The Moscow Times reported.

The law comes one year after Putin banned the use of curse words in media. That measure also did not stipulate which words were prohibited. However, The Russian Academy of Science said it mainly applied to words describing male and female reproductive organs, copulation and "women of loose morals," according to the BBC.

In accordance with the new law, books containing curse words will be required to feature warning labels on their front covers. Indications of how the law would be applied to films, television broadcasts and plays remained vague. Distributors who fail to warn their customers about swearing in videos would risk losing their license, reported the BBC.

Also, a computer program that scans the Internet for curse words will go live in the autumn, the BCC reported, putting bloggers at increased risk of persecution in Russia's tightly controlled media arena.

Russia ranks 148th out of 179 countries that are listed in the Press Freedom Index of Reporters Without Borders, an international media watchdog. Various censorship laws, such as a law issued Monday that punishes criticism of the Soviet's Union role in World War II and a 2013 measure that criminalizes calls for separatism limit press freedom in the country.

[Barrister]

And there goes 2 Live Crew's opportunity to be goodwill ambassadors:

Man Sav, what a hip and up-to-date cultural reference!

[Syt]

And on the subject of last year's censorship law:

http://rt.com/politics/157032-russian-swearing-robot-watchdog/

E-bots to enforce new Russian ban on obscenities

The federal agency for mass media control has started to test software to automatically monitor online media for the use of obscene language, both in articles and in user comments.

A spokesman for the Roskomnadzor agency, Vadim Ampelonskiy, told the mass circulation daily Izvestia that the system was expected to be launched before the end of the year. The cost of the project is estimated at 25 million rubles or about $694,000. Technicians are making lists of keywords for the searches as they manually monitor the Russian language sector of the internet.

The current version of the software only scans text, but in the future it will be also work with audio and video files, Ampelonskiy said.

The monitoring of the internet for obscene language has become necessary as in April 2013 President Vladimir Putin signed into force a federal law banning the use of obscene language in mass media under threat of fines up to 200,000 rubles ($5,500). Breaking the law will result in an official warning to the media outlet and two such warning within 12 months could mean the outlet's government license is revoked. The law applies both to text prepared by editorial teams and to user comments if they are publicly accessible.

Roskomnadzor has come up with two lists of swear words – those that were completely outlawed and those that were allowed under condition that printed and internet media publish them under "16+" parental advisory.

According to the head of the agency, Aleksandr Zharov, within the first year Roscomnadzor issued warnings to 65 mass media outlets, mostly over internet user comments. The official also said that the amount of obscenities in the Russian mass media had dropped dramatically because of the new regulations.

On Monday this week Vladimir Putin signed into law another bill concerning the use of obscene language – the ban on swear words in literature and art, including concerts, theatre, plays and public movie shows.

The violation of the new rules is also punishable by fines of between 200 and 2500 rubles for individuals, between 4000 and 5000 for civil servants and between 40,000 and 50,000 for companies. Movies containing obscene language will be denied official distribution licenses and any showing of a film without a license will be punished with much heavier fines – between 100,000 and 200,000 rubles as well as suspending of the cinema for up to three months.

The law has drawn a lot of criticism from some parts of the Russian artistic community who fear their freedom of expression is being denied. However, according to a poll conducted by the Public Opinion foundation in 2013, 84 percent of Russians supported the ban on obscenities.

It should be noted that the law is not retrospective, and does not apply to creative products released before it came into force.

[Syt]

Also of note. Does anyone have an overview of the "218 principal orders"?

http://rt.com/politics/157300-russia-government-putin-orders/

Half of Putin's 218 principal orders fulfilled - government

The Russian government reports it has fulfilled about a half of the 218 "May Orders" – the points in the major social and economic program signed by President Putin right after his inauguration two years ago.

According to the report published on the government's web-site on Wednesday, ministers have managed to execute 121 presidential orders in two years. The reports on the execution of 17 more orders are currently being reviewed by the Presidential Administration and 97 orders are still being worked on, the report reads.

The authors of the document add that the execution of three orders are overdue – they should have been implemented before December 2013. The work on the rest is on schedule and the program must be fully completed before 2020 – well beyond Vladimir Putin's current presidential term that expires in 2018.

The government released a report a year ago that said it had managed to fulfill only two thirds of the presidential plans for the period, and President Putin said that he had deliberately set high objectives to make civil servants work harder.

The May Orders are the major guidelines for national development signed by Putin after his inauguration as president in May 2012. They include the plan for economic development, reforms in state administration, foreign policy, in science and the military, and also various social reforms, including healthcare, demographics and ethnic policies.

The orders are based on Putin's 2012 electoral program and are used by the President's political allies for promoting their course. The United Popular Front movement announced in late 2013 that its representatives would oversee the implementation of the May Orders and report all violations to officials, including the presidential administration. In early April this year the pro-Putin leftist party Fair Russia drafted a bill in which state officials responsible for failures in executing the presidential orders should be fined up to 200,000 rubles or even jailed for up to three years. [dafuq?]

Also on Wednesday the Russian press wrote that Vladimir Putin was marking his tenth combined year in office. The government's newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazetaran an editorial detailing five most important events in Putin's presidency. According to reporters, these were the recent accession of the Crimean Republic into the Russian Federation, the Sochi Olympics, the successful ecological projects on Lake Baikal, the demographic boom in Russia and the peaceful political solution of the Syrian crisis in 2013.

Public opinion polls show that Vladimir Putin is enjoying extremely high support from the Russian population. The Levada Center puts the current presidential rating at 82 percent – the second highest in history, next to 86 percent in April 2008 when Putin met with US President George W. Bush in Sochi.

Another pollster – the All Russian Public Opinion Center – says the "happiness index" in Russia is now at its highest in the country's modern history. According to the research conducted in late April 78 percent of Russians consider themselves to be happy in general and most of thr respondents explain this simply by the fact that their life brings them joy.

[Viking]

(HEAVILY trimmed down.)

I like how the Voice of Russia complains in english to americans about how Voice of America gets to broadcast in russian to russians.

[KRonn]

What is going on in Russia, with all the censorship and continued heavy hand of government? Badly broken economy, kind of a kleptocracy isn't it? I love how the polls say Russians are pleased with the way things are, and that they're happy. Must be the same polling that was done in Crimea.    

[derspiess]

http://news.yahoo.com/major-moscow-show-explores-lenin-stalin-personality-cults-153057719.html

That main pic of Lenin looks like he's showing his O-face.  Gross.

[garbon]

Also of note. Does anyone have an overview of the "218 principal orders"?

http://rt.com/politics/157300-russia-government-putin-orders/

Half of Putin's 218 principal orders fulfilled - government

The Russian government reports it has fulfilled about a half of the 218 "May Orders" – the points in the major social and economic program signed by President Putin right after his inauguration two years ago.

According to the report published on the government's web-site on Wednesday, ministers have managed to execute 121 presidential orders in two years. The reports on the execution of 17 more orders are currently being reviewed by the Presidential Administration and 97 orders are still being worked on, the report reads.

The authors of the document add that the execution of three orders are overdue – they should have been implemented before December 2013. The work on the rest is on schedule and the program must be fully completed before 2020 – well beyond Vladimir Putin's current presidential term that expires in 2018.

The government released a report a year ago that said it had managed to fulfill only two thirds of the presidential plans for the period, and President Putin said that he had deliberately set high objectives to make civil servants work harder.

The May Orders are the major guidelines for national development signed by Putin after his inauguration as president in May 2012. They include the plan for economic development, reforms in state administration, foreign policy, in science and the military, and also various social reforms, including healthcare, demographics and ethnic policies.

The orders are based on Putin's 2012 electoral program and are used by the President's political allies for promoting their course. The United Popular Front movement announced in late 2013 that its representatives would oversee the implementation of the May Orders and report all violations to officials, including the presidential administration. In early April this year the pro-Putin leftist party Fair Russia drafted a bill in which state officials responsible for failures in executing the presidential orders should be fined up to 200,000 rubles or even jailed for up to three years. [dafuq?]

Also on Wednesday the Russian press wrote that Vladimir Putin was marking his tenth combined year in office. The government's newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazetaran an editorial detailing five most important events in Putin's presidency. According to reporters, these were the recent accession of the Crimean Republic into the Russian Federation, the Sochi Olympics, the successful ecological projects on Lake Baikal, the demographic boom in Russia and the peaceful political solution of the Syrian crisis in 2013.

Public opinion polls show that Vladimir Putin is enjoying extremely high support from the Russian population. The Levada Center puts the current presidential rating at 82 percent – the second highest in history, next to 86 percent in April 2008 when Putin met with US President George W. Bush in Sochi.

Another pollster – the All Russian Public Opinion Center – says the "happiness index" in Russia is now at its highest in the country's modern history. According to the research conducted in late April 78 percent of Russians consider themselves to be happy in general and most of thr respondents explain this simply by the fact that their life brings them joy.

Those 5 most important events are...really impressive.

[DGuller]

Putin is responsible for demographic boom?  No wonder he never has his shirt on.

[Jacob]

It just occurred to me - and it seems so basic now, that I'm sure it must have been brought up and discussed before - what Putin's game is re: Ukraine:

He doesn't give a damn about the Russians in Eastern Ukraine, nor about what happens in Western Ukraine. Putin's interest in the situation is to have a nice external enemy which he can use to unite significant portions of the Russian population behind him and which he can use to make himself look strong, restrained, noble, and/or statesmanlike as required.

Based on that, I think his priorities in Ukraine/ Crimea are:

- keep the conflict going
- avoid any embarrassing losses

Russia may grab further bits of Ukraine if the opportunity presents itself, but I think the priority is to look strong back home and avoid an Afghanistan scenario. This, to me, explains why Russia hasn't moved on any kind of "end game". The simmering conflict, with a nice option to escalate if necessary, is the "end game".

Yes? No? Maybe? What do you think?

[Queequeg]

He doesn't give a damn about the Russians in Eastern Ukraine, nor about what happens in Western Ukraine. Putin's interest in the situation is to have a nice external enemy which he can use to unite significant portions of the Russian population behind him and which he can use to make himself look strong, restrained, noble, and/or statesmanlike as required.

I said this in the Ukraine thread maybe 8 pages back.

[derspiess]

It just occurred to me - and it seems so basic now, that I'm sure it must have been brought up and discussed before - what Putin's game is re: Ukraine:

He doesn't give a damn about the Russians in Eastern Ukraine, nor about what happens in Western Ukraine. Putin's interest in the situation is to have a nice external enemy which he can use to unite significant portions of the Russian population behind him and which he can use to make himself look strong, restrained, noble, and/or statesmanlike as required.

Based on that, I think his priorities in Ukraine/ Crimea are:

- keep the conflict going
- avoid any embarrassing losses

Russia may grab further bits of Ukraine if the opportunity presents itself, but I think the priority is to look strong back home and avoid an Afghanistan scenario. This, to me, explains why Russia hasn't moved on any kind of "end game". The simmering conflict, with a nice option to escalate if necessary, is the "end game".

Yes? No? Maybe? What do you think?

It's anyone's guess and you may be right, but I think Putin genuinely wants to unite all Russians (and Russian wanna-bes) under the Russian Federation.  I think that is his end-game, and he is going to be as aggressive or patient as the situation allows or dictates.  Secondarily he wants to weaken the West and/or bring parts of it under strong Russian influence.  Obviously he loves his power and popular support and building both are probably always in his objectives.  But I think he's a genuine expansionist.